HoofbeatsEqualZebra lives on Fairmount Hill, just perfect to catch all the sound from the train yards and tracks of Readville, including the now infamous 22-minute stuck-on-blast hornshow late in the evening of April 16. He even recorded part of it (only 40 seconds, but for full effect, just let it keep looping for 22 minutes).
Nothing like pulling into the Wolcott Square Dunkin' Donuts for a couple of breakfast sandwiches and seeing a freight train slowly rolling past on the Fairmount Line tracks above you. Read more.
MassDOT and the freight railroad CSX are battling the owner of a vacant parcel next to a currently dormant rail line behind the South Boston convention center over his proposal to lease out the space for construction companies to park their trucks there. Read more.
The Crimson reports the U last month gave CSX a payment of $147.3 million for the easement the railroad still had on part of the 47-acre Allston site, which Harvard plans to transform one of these decades.
In more exciting Harvard news, the Crimson also shows us what happens when Harvard men quarrel: They write really angry e-mails.
With so many rail lines converging and all these old-fashioned trestles, Readville's the best place in Boston to see all manner of commuter-rail and Amtrak trains. And with what could be the last rail yard in the city limits (Ed. note: Somebody correct me if I'm wrong), it's also the best place to see freight trains. This afternoon, these two locomotives pushed a series of freight cars into the Readville yard, just past Readville station on the Fairmount Line.
F-Line to Dudley reports CSX is planning to open its new Worcester freight yards Sept. 1, which will mean a dramatic dropoff in traffic through Beacon Park in Allston - mainly train equipment needing repairs and a few trains going to a small number of customers inside 128 (such as the Houghton Chemical plant right next to the Allston yard).
Lt. Gov. Tim Murray announced this morning the state and the giant railroad have resolved the last stumbling block to a massive deal that will, among other things, clear out the Allston freight yards and give the MBTA complete control over the train line to Worcester.
Under the agreement, the state will buy the Worcester Line, potentially leading to reduced delays now caused by CSX dispatch rules - as well as a freight line from Beacon Park Yard in Allston through Cambridge to East Boston from CSX, and a freight line to Fall River and New Bedford.
The Beacon Park Yard move, expected to be completed in 2012, will clear the way for the addition of commuter-rail service to Allston/Brighton, possible help enable the long-fabled Urban Ring project and give Harvard, which already owns the yard, more cleared land that it can then let sit fallow.
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