@@BostonByRails North Station South Station was MBTA E - 8 engines GP - 9 X - Penn Central - New Haven RDC cars Penn Central New Haven and NYC cars until late 1978 when the F - 40 ‘ and the Pullman Standard commuter rail cars started in service I love when the MBTA leased D & H PA engines before they went Mexico the last time that PA engines ran out of South Station was back in the New Haven RR days back in the late 1940’s early 1950’s
I just hope, that whatever they replace it with the replacement bridge will have the clearance for future electrification, so they don’t have to replace a brand new bridge a few years after opening because they didn’t account for overhead wire clearance.
Looks like the existing drawbridges have enough clearance for the overhead wires, if only you can figure out how to interface the part on the bridge with the part on solid land.
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglio That part's pretty easy: power them separately. Momentum will carry the train over a few inches of missing power line, and the source for each section of wire can come from more feasible locations (like the power grid on each side of the river, or the hinge point in the bridge mechanism, etc).
@@c182SkylaneRG I've thought about that, since this is actually what was done on at least 1 (I think more) drawbridge on the Northeast Corridor. It does have a couple of risks: If a pantograph doesn't go down, you get trashed wire on the other end of the gap (reportedly, this has happened on the Northeast Corridor, although on these drawbridges it might actually reach the bridge structure and get ripped off); and a train can get stuck there (momentum is good but sometimes you have to stop where you don't want to; reportedly this has happened in a Northeast Corridor gap). The first problem could be solved if you could make sure that the wire goes up really high on each end of the gap so as to properly catch a pantograph that failed to go down (and it looks like enough room is available around the bridges here, although the bridges themselves might hose this -- at least it is easier to replace a pantograph than to replace a long stretch of wire). The latter problem could be solved if the trains had enough battery power to start again in a gap and move a short distance.
Just an FYI, the proper term for the two remaining bridges are bascule bridges. I started taking the old Budd RDC-1's, 2's and 3's back in the early 1970's when it was still the Boston and Maine. It is nice to hear someone is keeping record of the history of the passenger rail service in the Boston area, thanks.
The draw replacement bridge is a waste of money. The "North South Rail Link" would create four lanes of tunnel under the river. It would save the cost of replacing the draw bridge. The more I hear about Boston rail, the more I think the "North South Rail Link" should be high priority. It would solve many rail problems in Boston.
The cost of that link would be over $1300 for every man, woman and child in NEW ENGLAND, cause massive disruption, and take many years to make. I love rail travel as much as the next person, but good luck getting voters in Vermont, Connecticut or Massachusetts to sign off on that kind of payout ... never mind those in Wichita or West Palm Beach or Waco. (It isn't as if it's a ghastly hardship to get off at Back Bay and take the Orange Line to North Station.)
work at tower A for the first 6 years of my 31 year railroad career I've been up in the top of the bridges and worked the signal dept. side . you can still see the dents in the cement counter weight on span 1 were it hit the tracks when it broke free
I drove over the lower deck early that morning in January 1984 with the fire burning, it was a -40 wind chill day, wind chills got revised down many years later. We didn’t see much except some smoke.
I remember as a kid watching those draw bridges go and down in the 70’ at that time there was no Amtrak service to Maine just the RDC cars until 1978 that’s when the GP - 7’s were being leased by the MBTA to help out the RDC cars after the 78 blizzard
What about figuring out a way to incline the approaching railways so that a fixed bridge with adequate clearance below it could be built. Yes, it would create lots more train congestion as probably would work on raising two lines at a time forcing all rail traffic to two lines but eventually all four lines and a higher bridge could be built.
I’ve heard of crossing gates stopping cars and trucks but never have I’ve seen crossing gates stop Trains on a track before that’s pretty cool there’s only one other place I know of that has this type of technique and that’s a lone diamond track that crosses the south shoreline slightly out of Chicago it guards a single track diamond the gates always lower for the South Shore line commuter trains
Why wasn't the bridge locked into place before removing ties? That aside, it was always fun going under the lowered bridge in a small open boat and have hot oil dripped on you if a loco passed over.
It’s nice to see a non-rebuilt GP40MC locomotive still wearing it’s original mechanical bell on the front as all of these engines including the F40PH locomotives are being rebuilt they will lose their mechanical belss in favor of electronic bells made by The Company with the word Graham in it who to my knowledge bought out the company that made those distinctive Canadian electronic bells which some of the Texas Trinity Railway express F59PH and cab car units have sadly after the takeover I think these bells were discontinued
This drawbridge is the worst - and trains have to slow down so much on the approach to it that it’s actually quicker to take the orange line from Malden to North Station than the commuter rail.
Silly. All this constant disruption and expense for the sake of a mile and a half of navigation upstream (very few boats can get beyond the Harvard Bridge's 12 foot clearance and nothing at all of any necessity) Maybe it's time to let sanity rule and consider that area of water a lake. Some of these colonial laws are ridiculous in the modern world.
@@anitrain Basically a bunch of cute sailing dinghies of community boating, duck boat tours and some small craft from the Watertown Yacht Club that can actually pass under the low bridges. For this we had to build the Zakim bridge and now replace the railroad bridges. Believe it or not there's even a set of locks for these runabouts. basically billions for daysailers.
@@BG-sl9lv Key word there is Yacht Club, probably means lots of people with lots of money and as such the ears of the right politicians in city hall and the state capitol.
Federal funding Meaning, my Texan ass is paying for a bunch of Boston commuters Let’s see, how the hell much did the Big Dig cost me? How over budget was that cluster F? Live your vids no matter
The net flow of federal funds has been INTO Texas and OUT OF Massachusetts for decades. Your "Texan ass" has been subsidized by Massachusetts taxpayers like me forever. Perhaps you might look at actual budgets and data from time to time -- if you care about facts at all.
Nope. Mass residents pay more in federal taxes than the state receives in funding. Texas residents on the other hand can't seem to live within their means and get more money from the Feds then they pay in. So the real question is what dumb stuff in Texas are those Boston commuters paying for after they've paid for their own infrastructure out of their own pockets?
