New England Depot

Friday, February 20, 2015

Connecticut Governor Proposes $1.7 Billion in Rail Improvements

(SOURCE: Trains.com)

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has proposed spending $1.7 billion in rail improvements over the next five fiscal years as part of a two-year $40 billion budget proposal made to the state's General Assembly on Wednesday. The day before, Malloy and the Connecticut Department of Transportation issued the 72-page "Let's Go CT - Connecticut's Bold Vision for a Transportation Future" plan, detailing a $100 billion program to upgrade highway, rail, bus, and seaport services in 30 years.

Although no funding is in place for the long-term plan, the governor's "Five Year Ramp-Up Transportation Plan" calls for the state to spend a total of $6.5 billion, with an additional $3.4 billion assumed to be provided by Federal sources in fiscal years 2016 through 2020.

Connecticut's Interstate highways are among the nation's oldest, and substantial portions of the proposed $9.9 billion is slated to go to replacement of major bridges and highway interchanges, as well as widening some of the remaining original segments. But mass transit is far from forgotten. The majority of the rail allotment will go to the Northeast Corridor and its commuter branches, operated as the New Haven Line for the state by Metro-North Railroad. Several major projects also are planned for the 62-mile New Haven-Hartford-Springfield, Mass., line, and Shore Line East commuter rail services that operate over the Northeast Corridor.

In his budget address, Malloy said, "Connecticut's railways have helped shape the history of our state. But for generations we've paid them lip service, without committing to the kind of improvements they need to remain just usable, but a dynamic part of our economy." The Five Year Ramp-Up Plan provides funding to finish design and construction of replacement and additional stations on the New Haven-Hartford line, and new stations on the Metro-North New Haven Line. Replacement of double track over the length of the New Haven-Hartford line also is in the plans. The governor's address mentioned that these improvements could "open up the possibility of new routes to Boston and Montreal."

Also included in the five-year plan is starting the replacement of a century-old moveable bridge in South Norwalk, and repairs to other old moveable bridges that have suffered mechanical problems leading to Metro-North and Amtrak train delays in recent years. The single-track manual block Waterbury Branch, owned by the state and operated by Metro-North, is expected to receive a signal system.

Narrow Gauge Rail Museum to Remain in Portland ME Until 2017

(SOURCE: Trains.com)

PORTLAND, Maine – The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum will stay put on Portland's eastern promenade for at least another year, after its new landlord agreed to a lease. The 2-foot-gauge museum plans to move its operation to Gray to allow the 10-acre waterfront property to be redeveloped.

Donnell Carroll, executive director of the museum, says he is pleased to have reached a lease agreement that maintains operations in Portland until a new facility is built roughly 25 miles away in Gray. Carroll says the agreement extends through 2016 into early 2017, giving the museum time to develop the Gray site.

The museum has much of the rolling stock of the old Edaville Railroad in Massachusetts, most of which came from two of Maine's fabled "two-footers," the Bridgton & Harrison and the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes railroads. It operates on about 1.5 miles of track along the Casco Bay waterfront, offering seasonal tourist rides and the popular Polar Express around the Christmas holiday.

A pending zoning change to allow the developers to build taller buildings for residential use is facing opposition from neighbors concerned about the impact on water views, as well as the historic Portland Co. buildings.

The Portland Co. built locomotives, rail cars, and ships at the site.

220 National Guard Members Join Hundreds of MBTA Employees and Contractors

(Source: NECN.COM, with video)

Four and a half days after the MBTA threw in the towel and shut down all rail service, a crew of 60 MBTA workers and contractors descended on the Boston College trolley yard to begin digging it out – not with power equipment, but with hand shovels and ice choppers.

As snow has melted and frozen into ice, it’s left hundreds of feet of depressed rail grooves that have to be chipped out. Still to come is the task of clearing off miles of mainline Green Line B-line branch track down the middle of Commonwealth Avenue from BC to the tunnel portal at Kenmore Square.

MBTA Moving Forward With Service Restoration Plan

"I'm hoping that we'll get the T back soon," BC student Ben Lauer, from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, said Thursday afternoon as he waited for a shuttle bus to Kenmore.

Lauer and other BC students, however, were a little perplexed as to why it appeared so little progress was being made in getting the above-ground portion of the B line - which is used by 26,310 riders a day, according to the most recent T passenger counts – back into regular service.

"Looking at all the shovelers sort of in a line doing that, you think they could probably do it at some sort of faster rate, maybe get a snow plow out," Lauer said.

Ian Wyllie, a BC student from Duxbury, said as he watched crews digging out the trolley yard, "Whether they’re shoveling or plowing, it all seems kind of haphazard. There’s still snow all the way down the tracks, so it’s hard to tell what they’re doing."

In all, the T said, besides the 60 workers on the Green Line B branch. It also had 90 Corrections Department prisoners working to clear the Mattapan High Speed Trolley line, 200 T workers and contractors on the upper stretch of the Red Line Braintree branch north of North Quincy, and 220 National Guard members working between Quincy Center and Braintree. The T has said it plans to have Red Line trains running to North Quincy by Friday, to Braintree and Boston College by Monday, and on the Mattapan line by Feb. 27.

While some have wondered whether the T should be swarming the system with more people to get service up faster. But MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in a telephone interview the T has deployed the maximum number of people it can safely and effectively supervise as they work around switches, third rails, electrical power supplies and other hazards.

The National Guard members have made a particularly impressive show of force on the Red Line – but, ultimately, can only move as fast as 220 troops wielding 220 shovels can to chip out and move snow and ice off miles of track.

"It's going pretty well," guard member Nykkia Dentnoble, who lives in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, said in an interview with NECN’s Michael Rosenfield and Dan Smith Thursday morning. "We're all working together, working hard."

Lyford Beverage, a guardsman from Lawrence, said: "It's just nice that we're able to come out and help the MBTA and all of that, because I know it's important to the people here."

Very important – and riders like Jacqueline Batchelder of Quincy have lost all patience that, for a fifth day in a row, they're still on a slow, hassle-filled bus shuttle instead of a functioning Red Line.

"It's terrible. Terrible," Batchelder said. "I can't understand why they can't fix this problem. We live in New England!"