Forget about subway-like service on the Fairmount Line; another blow to Olympics plan

other areas did receive new bumps in funding, including $35 million toward dredging the Boston Harbor. The capital budget also includes $79 million for new Red and Orange line cars and $251 million toward the Green Line extension.

The legislature has had a commuter rail fetish since the 1990s. The good thing about these stations is that they can be converted to heavy rail transit lines without too much work. A third rail or catenary, a connection to a service depot, and the vehicles themselves is all that's needed. Both the Fairmount and Framingham lines could be connected to either the Red (@ South Station) or Orange lines (@ Back Bay Station) without too much engineering.

The only functional difference between the tracks that commuter rail runs on and the tracks that rapid transit runs on is the presence of electrification (or in the case of the Northeast Corridor, a difference in electrification schemes.)

Every single other hurtle to running actual rapid transit on the commuter rail network isn't technological - it's regulatory, it's organizational, it's functionally a problem of people refusing to move forward in time.

Consider Washington, DC. For all its problems (and it has many, many problems), WMATA's Metrorail remains the only rapid transit network that has embraced the fact that there is no absolute boundary between "commuter rail" and "rapid transit" that says these are different modes for different markets... at 27 miles long, the Metrorail Orange Line is more than double the length of the MBTA's Orange Line, nearly six miles longer than the "commuter" rail trip to Framingham, and yet somehow, nobody considers this an unreasonable length for a rapid transit subway... because it's not unreasonable at all, in fact, there is no prevailing reason why you couldn't plan for subways that travel over similar distances throughout all of Greater Boston, there's no arbitrary point past which we must say "this is now too long for a subway."

But suppose you do decide that there's a limit. Maybe you won't ever run trains more than 25 miles from end to end. That's fine. We still, in fact, have "commuter" rail trainsets more than capable of making longer journeys at rapid transit frequencies. Though the New York area doesn't run them effectively, both the LIRR and the MNCR exclusively use EMUs - electric multiple units - on all of their electrified railroads. The MBTA could run these trains between Boston and Providence today, and it's just a matter of electrifying other key rail lines - as has should have been done decades ago - before the same trains could run to Lowell, to Worcester, to Newburyport - and perhaps one day on to Portsmouth.

We could even, in fact, run all these trains on the same tracks! Assuming the electrification schemes agree, which isn't difficult to do (since one of the electrification schemes doesn't even exist yet for the most part), there's no gauge difference or platform height difference or any other difference that prevents us from running Blue Line trains on the Providence Line right there with the Amtrak trains and the "commuter" rail. This too is a regulatory hurtle and nothing more - the only obstacle to overcome is obstinate people with no imagination and limited vision for the future.

Commuter rail shouldn't exist. It should be abolished. We're more than capable of running subways everywhere within 128 and regional trains outside of it, on the same tracks, with little to no replication of infrastructure necessary.

It's a circular argument: low ridership on the Fairmount line = constantly cancelled trains, because if there's a problem anywhere in the system (the logic at the info booth at South Station goes) they are obliged to cancel trains on the line with the lowest ridership. But when no one can rely on the Fairmount train ... how do you build ridership?

I've been given many answers to this question at the information desk or when calling MBTA CR customer service. I was once told "it's the community's fault for not talking up the new stations when they opened." I've been told by one person answering the customer service line "I find the commuter rail totally frustrating. I wish I didn't have to ride it."

And the worst one: "Yeah, we're probably going to shut down the Fairmount line. It's not worth it." (These are all direct quotes.)

Not worth it to whom? Not worth it to the for-profit company to serve the most underserved neighborhoods in the city? Not worth it to actually make the effort to follow through on what was promised these neighborhoods?

And while the motive is crap, I ultimately am happy to see the end of the DMU scheme before it began.

It was a sideshow and a distraction from what ought to be the real goals of the MBTA with regards to the commuter rail: complete electrification, and total replacement of its current fleet with EMUs.

It's new for the MBTA, though, which is probably what he's thinking. I don't agree with the decision myself, but there's a certain logic to "If the MBTA can't even keep the trains they're used to running reliably doing so, how the f*ck are they going to deal with new and unfamiliar train tech?"

Because Deval with better with secret slush funds, no accountability of any government managers, and lopsided budgets propped up with smoke and mirrors?

Baker won because he was and is a boringly cold but usually competent manager.

You need one.

DMUs would run much faster on a line with frequent stops, since they have much better acceleration and braking than loco-hauled trains. A faster trip means less labor costs, and more trips per day from the same equipment. They'd also have far lower fuel and employee costs per train (no more hauling around 6 cars with only 1 open, with 3 conductors doing who knows what).

That's what allows for frequent service which is affordable to run.

Also, a sensible DMU order would be far more reliable. The T's locomotives break down every 5000 miles on average.

The best thing the T would do is to buy proven mass-produced European DMUs. This would require applying for a waiver from the federal government, but California is doing it.