Fore River Transportation Corporation
The Fore River Transportation Corporation is the operator of the Fore River Railroad, a class III railroad in eastern Massachusetts owned by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. The railroad runs from the Fore River Shipyard in the Quincy Point neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts to the Greenbush Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, it was constructed in 1902 to serve the Fore River Shipyard. In 2015, the railroad received a $500,000 grant from the state of Massachusetts to improve its tracks. In 1987 the MWRA acquired the shipyard. MWRA contracts the operation of the railroad to the Fore River Transportation Corporation. MWRA uses the railroad to transport fertilizer, produced by a owned processing facility, NEFCO Biosolids, from solid sewage waste; the sludge is transported to NEFCO from the MWRA's Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant via a pipeline system under Boston Harbor that transports sewage to Deer Island. The railroad serves a Twin Rivers Technologies plant, shipping fatty acid products from the facility.
Media related to Fore River Railroad at Wikimedia Commons
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium- and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States and to nine Canadian cities. Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U. S. passenger rail services, it receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization. Amtrak's headquarters is located one block west of Union Station in Washington, D. C. Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations in 46 states and three Canadian provinces, operating more than 300 trains daily over 21,400 miles of track. Amtrak owns 623 miles of this track and operates an additional 132 miles of track; some track sections allow trains to run as fast as 150 mph. In fiscal year 2018, Amtrak served 31.7 million passengers and had $3.4 billion in revenue, while employing more than 20,000 people. Nearly 87,000 passengers ride more than 300 Amtrak trains on a daily basis. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the 10 largest metropolitan areas.
The name Amtrak is a portmanteau of the words America and trak, the latter itself a sensational spelling of track. In 1916, 98% of all commercial intercity travelers in the United States moved by rail, the remaining 2% moved by inland waterways. Nearly 42 million passengers used railways as primary transportation. Passenger trains were owned and operated by the same owned companies that operated freight trains; as the 20th century progressed, patronage declined in the face of competition from buses, air travel, the automobile. New streamlined diesel-powered trains such as the Pioneer Zephyr were popular with the traveling public but could not reverse the trend. By 1940, railroads held just 67 percent of commercial passenger-miles in the United States. In real terms, passenger-miles had fallen by 40 % from 42 billion to 25 billion. Traffic surged during World War II, aided by troop movement and gasoline rationing; the railroad's market share surged with a massive 94 billion passenger-miles. After the war, railroads rejuvenated their overworked and neglected passenger fleets with fast and luxurious streamliners.
These new trains brought only temporary relief to the overall decline. As postwar travel exploded, passenger travel percentages of the overall market share fell to 46% by 1950, 32% by 1957; the railroads had lost money on passenger service since the Great Depression, but deficits reached $723 million in 1957. For many railroads, these losses threatened financial viability; the causes of this decline were debated. The National Highway System and airports, both funded by the government, competed directly with the railroads, who paid for their own infrastructure. Progressive Era rate regulation limited the railroad's ability to turn a profit. Railroads faced antiquated work rules and inflexible relationships with trade unions. To take one example, workers continued to receive a day's pay for 100-to-150-mile work days. Streamliners covered that in two hours. Matters approached a crisis in the 1960s. Passenger service route-miles fell from 107,000 miles in 1958 to 49,000 miles in 1970, the last full year of private operation.
The diversion of most U. S. Postal Service mail from passenger trains to trucks and freight trains in late 1967 deprived those trains of badly needed revenue. In direct response, the Atchison and Santa Fe Railway filed to discontinue 33 of its remaining 39 trains, ending all passenger service on one of the largest railroads in the country; the equipment the railroads had ordered after World War II was now 20 years old, worn out, in need of replacement. As passenger service declined various proposals were brought forward to rescue it; the 1961 Doyle Report proposed. Similar proposals failed to attract support; the federal government passed the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 to fund pilot programs in the Northeast Corridor, but this did nothing to address passenger deficits. In late 1969 multiple proposals emerged in the United States Congress, including equipment subsidies, route subsidies, lastly, a "quasi-public corporation" to take over the operation of intercity passenger trains.
Matters were brought to a head on March 5, 1970, when the Penn Central, the largest railroad in the Northeast United States and teetering on bankruptcy, filed to discontinue 34 of its passenger trains. In October 1970, Congress passed, President Richard Nixon signed into law, the Rail Passenger Service Act. Proponents of the bill, led by the National Association of Railroad Passengers, sought government funding to ensure the continuation of passenger trains, they conceived the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, a private entity that would receive taxpayer funding and assume operation of intercity passenger trains. The original working brand name for NRPC was Railpax, but shortly before the company started operating it was changed to Amtrak. There were several key provisions: Any railroad operating intercity passenger service could contract with the NRPC, thereby joining the national system. Participating railroads bought into the NRPC using a formula based on their recent intercity passenger losses.
The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock. Any participating railroad was freed of the obligation to operate intercity passenger service after May 1, 1971, except for those services chosen by the Department of Transportation as part of a "basic system" of servic
Massachusetts
Massachusetts the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, New York to the west; the state is named after the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the east side of the area, is one of the original thirteen states. The capital of Massachusetts is Boston, the most populous city in New England. Over 80% of Massachusetts's population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history and industry. Dependent on agriculture and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts's economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, higher education and maritime trade. Plymouth was the site of the second colony in New England after Popham Colony in 1607 in what is now Maine.
Plymouth was founded in 1620 by passengers of the Mayflower. In 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of America's most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, including interchangeable parts. In 1786, Shays' Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, originated from the pulpit of Northampton preacher Jonathan Edwards. In the late 18th century, Boston became known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution; the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a powerful commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements.
In the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first U. S. state to recognize same-sex marriage as a result of the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams and Kennedy families. Harvard University in Cambridge is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, with the largest financial endowment of any university, Harvard Law School has educated a contemporaneous majority of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet", in reference to the high concentration of entrepreneurial start-ups and quality of innovation which have emerged in the vicinity of the square since 2010. Both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most regarded academic institutions in the world.
Massachusetts' public-school students place among the top tier in the world in academic performance, the state has been ranked as one of the top states in the United States for citizens to live in, as well as one of the most expensive. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett derived from a Wôpanâak word muswach8sut, segmented as mus "big" + wach8 "mountain" + -s "diminutive" + -ut "locative", it has been translated as "near the great hill", "by the blue hills", "at the little big hill", or "at the range of hills", referring to the Blue Hills, or in particular the Great Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton. Alternatively, Massachusett has been represented as Moswetuset—from the name of the Moswetuset Hummock in Quincy, where Plymouth Colony commander Myles Standish, hired English military officer, Squanto, part of the now disappeared Patuxet band of the Wampanoag peoples, met Chief Chickatawbut in 1621; the official name of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts".
While this designation is part of the state's official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has powers within the United States as other states, it may have been chosen by John Adams for the second draft of the Massachusetts Constitution because unlike the word "state", "commonwealth" at the time had the connotation of a republic, in contrast to the monarchy the former American colonies were fighting against. Massachusetts was inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, these tribes were dependent on hunting and fishing for most of their food. Villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. In the early 1600s, after contact had been made with Europeans, large numbers of the indigenous peoples in the northeast of what is now the United States were killed by virgin soil epidemics such as smallpox, measles and leptospirosis.
Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed ap
New England Central Railroad
The New England Central Railroad began operations in 1995. It is a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming and runs from New London, Connecticut, to Alburgh, Vermont at the Canada–US border, a distance of 366 miles; the railroad interchanges with the CN, CSX, MCER, PAS, P&W, GMRC, WACR, VTR. The New England Central Railroad is the successor to the Central Vermont Railway, sold by the CN to the RailTex Corp. in 1995, at which point it was renamed the New England Central. The new railroad was marked by improved service compared to the old Central Vermont, as well as more flexible crew arrangements, both of which led to a resurgence of the line. Within a year of NECR's takeover of the line declining traffic flow was reversed, with the railroad handling more than 30,000 carloads annually within two years of commencing operations, in contrast to the old CV, which had suffered through years of declining traffic and the loss of profitability. NECR's motive power consisted of former Gulf and Ohio Railroad EMD GP38's although by the late 1990s, leased locomotives former Conrail EMD SD40s, entered service.
In 2000, Railtex was acquired by RailAmerica, subsequently bought in 2007 by Fortress Investments. Neither change in ownership affected the NECR to any great extent. In 2010, the railroad operated freight trains at night in order not to conflict with the Amtrak schedule; this led to sounding horns at unprotected crossings. Some residents in Winooski complained. On 9 November 2010, the railroad began construction on a project to raise speeds on trackage within Vermont to 59 miles per hour, with speeds on the route south of White River Junction being increased to 79 miles per hour for passenger service; the upgrades were part of a project to decrease running times for Amtrak's Vermonter, which operates over the route. Construction was funded by a $70 million grant from the federal government, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At the end of August 2011, the NECR was impacted by flood waters from Hurricane Irene. Though downgraded by this time to a tropical storm, Irene inflicted major damage between Montpelier and White River Junction washing away about 2,000 feet of roadbed and leaving welded rail and ties suspended in mid-air.
Two bridges over the White River were heavily damaged, but the line from White River Junction to New London was not affected as severely. At first it was estimated. However, with repair crews working around the clock to replace the washed-out ballast and shore up the bridges, the railroad was reopened for traffic by mid-September; the 45 railroads owned by RailAmerica, which had taken over RailTex lines, were transferred to Genesee & Wyoming in December 2012. This change of ownership caused a shuffle of locomotives around their rail system, the original NECR yellow & blue paint scheme is being replaced by the Genesee & Wyoming scheme. On August 15, 2016, Genesee & Wyoming announced an agreement to purchase the Providence and Worcester Railroad, which interchanges freight with the New England Central; the railroad's traffic consists of general freight, including lumber products, metals and stone products, although COFC and TOFC business is operated from the Canada–US border to Boston, in partnership with the Providence and Worcester Railroad.
The NECR hauled around 37,000 carloads in 2008. NECR maintains significant operations at several locations along their line, its main office is located in St. Albans, along with the main office for the Connecticut Southern Railroad, with which NECR shares many management functions. St. Albans is the location of the main shop and dispatch office. Vermont's largest rail yard is the St. Albans yard. Other significant operations are at White River Junction and Brattleboro, both of which are the location of offices and smaller yards. Palmer, Massachusetts serves as the main office for operations south of the Vermont line; as of September 2010, the NECR fleet consisted of the following: Between 1989 and 2014, Amtrak operated its daily Vermonter service between Washington, D. C. and St. Albans, using the NECR north of Palmer, Massachusetts. Beginning in December 2014, the Vermonter enters the NECR right-of-way at East Northfield, Massachusetts; the largest cause of delays on this line has been track and signal problems along the NECR.
Since 2007, many mainline track and surfacing improvements brought Amtrak's on time performance to above 80% on-time levels. The Central Corridor Rail Line is a proposed service that would run passenger cars from New London to Brattleboro over NECR trackage. NECR was named Short Line Railroad of the Year for 1995 by industry trade journal Railway Age. New England Central Railroad - Genesee & Wyoming website
Pan Am Railways
Pan Am Railways, Inc. known before March 2006 as Guilford Rail System, is an American holding company that owns and operates Class II regional railroads covering northern New England from Mattawamkeag, Maine, to Rotterdam Junction, New York. The primary subsidiaries of Pan Am Railways are Boston and Maine Corporation, Maine Central Railroad Company, Portland Terminal Company, Springfield Terminal Railway Company. Pan Am Railways is headquartered in Iron Horse Park in Massachusetts, it is a subsidiary of Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Pan Am Systems known as Guilford Transportation Industries. Guilford bought the name and logo of Pan American World Airways in 1998. During much of the 20th century, heavy manufacturing industry tended to move out of New England, making the region a receiver of freight traffic rather than an originator. Originating freight or carrying it long distance are far more profitable than final delivery or short haul. New England's railroads have long been handicapped by traffic flow that makes them delivery agents for other railroads and by short distances.
The longest one-railroad haul in New England was Boston & Maine's route from the Hudson River to Portland, Maine, 267 miles — less than one-eighth of the distance from Seattle to Chicago on the BNSF Railway. A merger consisting of the B&M, the Maine Central Railroad, the Delaware & Hudson Railway, along with one or more other New England railroads, was proposed as long ago as 1929 by the Interstate Commerce Commission as part of its nationwide merger proposal. Frederic C. Dumaine, Jr. president at various times of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad and D&H, proffered much the same idea. The benefits of such a merger would include economies of longer hauls. In 1977, Timothy Mellon, heir of the wealthy and influential Mellon family of Guilford, teamed up with ex-Penn Central employee David Fink to form Perma Treat, a railroad tie treatment company. Mellon wanted to acquire a railroad and considered several: Illinois Central Railroad and the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad.
None of those acquisitions happened. The passage of the Staggers Rail Act in 1980 allowed Mellon and Fink to execute a business plan, centering on buying up as many local railroads as possible, thus creating full horizontal integration over New England and the northern Mid-Atlantic states, gaining efficiencies of scale. In June 1981, Mellon purchased MEC and its wholly owned subsidiary Portland Terminal Company through his holding company, Guilford Transportation Industries. In June 1983, the B&M became the second piece of the Guilford system, bringing with it a subsidiary, the 6.5-mile Springfield Terminal Railway, a former interurban line connecting Springfield, Vermont to Charlestown, New Hampshire. The Springfield Terminal subsidiary continues to exist and houses most of the operational side of the entire company including train crews and dispatch; the formation of Penn Central in 1968 and its takeover of the NH at year's end had left New England with only one non-PC connection to the rest of the country: B&M's interchange with D&H at Mechanicville, New York.
The D&H made a logical extension to the Guilford system — and a necessary one if Guilford was to be more than a terminal company for Conrail traffic moving into New England. D&H was surrounded by Conrail and not doing well; the state of New York, which had financed much of D&H's rehabilitation program, approached Guilford about acquiring the railroad. In October 1981, the Norfolk & Western Railway, which owned D&H through a subsidiary holding company, agreed to sell it to Guilford; the purchase was completed at the beginning of 1984. By the time the Guilford system was formed, the one-time multiplicity of connecting railroads had become a single, well-managed railroad: Conrail. Any New England-bound traffic Conrail originated would move as far as possible on Conrail before being handed over to Guilford, it would move faster; the Guilford remained a terminating railroad. Guilford's first few years were defined by abandonments, labor unrest and strikes, a draconian management style that damaged the company's reputation.
The railroad implemented cost-cutting measures. Guilford began to shrink its system by eliminating marginal low-density routes. MEC's Mountain Division from Portland, Maine, to St. Johnsbury, carried no local traffic and served only to give MEC a connection with a railroad other than B&M. With the formation of the Guilford system, it was deemed redundant. B&M was now part of the family, interchanging traffic with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Mattawamkeag, was easier than battling the grades of Crawford Notch in New Hampshire. A section in New Hampshire was reborn as the Conway Scenic Railroad; the only business on MEC's Calais Branch from Bangor to Calais, was at the extreme eastern end, which could be reached by CP. Service on most of the branch was discontinued, the line was sold to the Maine Department of Transportation; the remaining service in Calais serves a pulp mill in Woodland and is operated by ST. The remaining 85-mile Ellsworth-Calais segment was leased to the Downeast Sunrise Trail, an interim rail trail.
MEC's Rockland Branch from Brunswick, to Rockland, was on the chopping blo
Grafton and Upton Railroad
The Grafton and Upton Railroad is a Class III short line railroad in east-central Massachusetts. This 16.5 mile line runs from Grafton to Milford and connects to CSX Transportation lines at both ends. Following a period of decline and neglect and repairs began in 2008 with the aim of returning the line to operable condition; the Grafton Centre Railroad was chartered October 22, 1873 and opened August 20, 1874 as a 3 ft narrow gauge connection from Grafton to a junction with the Boston and Albany Railroad at North Grafton. The last narrow gauge train ran on July 9, 1887; the line was converted to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in standard gauge on September 1, 1887. On February 17, 1888, the name was changed to the Grafton and Upton Railroad by an act of the state legislature. An extension to West Upton opened on March 12, 1889, an extension to Milford opened on May 17, 1890, connecting to the Milford and Woonsocket Railroad a line of the New Haven Railroad; the Upton Street Railway was absorbed in 1902 and named the'Electric Loop' or'Upton Loop'.
Passenger service on this loop and the main line was provided by cars leased from the Milford and Uxbridge Street Railway. In November 1894 William F. Draper of the Draper Company was appointed to the Board of Directors; the Draper Company purchased the G&U and operated it as a subsidiary. Electric operations took place during the daytime, while steam locomotives used the tracks during the nighttime hours; the G&U ceased passenger service on August 31, 1928. U. S. Mail service along with Railway Express service ceased in 1952. Electric operations ceased on the railroad dieselized during the 1950s, it was at this time that the whole line was upgraded to a heavier grade of track, the first overhaul since the narrow gauge was replaced in 1887. The Draper Company sold the G&U in 1967 to Rockwell International. Rockwell sold the G&U to a trucking company, Inc. of Worcester on January 29, 1979. Traffic has fluctuated over the years of Torco ownership; the last train to Hopedale was in 1988 and for the next 5 years activity was localized to the Grafton yard.
In 1993 the G&U bought their current engine, the St. Louis Union Station 212 and began hauling salt to Upton once again; this activity lasted until the late 90s. Torco, Inc. sold the G&U to the Lucy Family. In 2008 the G&U passed hands once again to Jon Delli Priscoli. Delli Priscoli has made clear his intentions to revitalize the railroad in its entirety from Grafton to Milford, work began in earnest in early 2008. In 2004 a test run was made on the track from North Grafton to West Upton; the track was determined to be in usable condition, however track beyond this point was so deteriorated that it would have been dangerous to operate a train. In March 2008, 50% of the dormant G&U was sold, with the option to purchase the rest; some in the town of Upton opposed any re-opening or increased use of the railroad line but were unable to have any influence. "We can't stop the railroad," said Selectmen Chairwoman Marsha Paul, "It is going to open. It will be about two years. It's something we'll have to monitor and watch."
The new owner, Delli Priscoli, claims that "Railroads are coming back."In October 2008 the North Grafton depot was expanded to accommodate two cars instead of one. On December 31, 2009, a test run was conducted, it was announced that the portion of the line from North Grafton to West Upton was operable; this is the largest rehabilitation. Several local residents in both Grafton and Upton have expressed concern regarding the railroad's ecological impact on air quality, as well as water integrity as a result of intensive development. An article in the Milford Daily News dated September 11, 2012, stated: "State and local officials drove a ceremonial spike into a South Main Street railroad crossing Monday, signifying the start of reconstruction of the Milford and Hopedale portion of the Grafton and Upton Railroad... Work on the Milford and Hopedale stretch is part of the second phase of getting the railroad back in shape... The first phase of the work was the stretch of track from Grafton to West Upton... said that he expects crossing construction in Milford will begin within the next month and hopes the entire track will be completed by the end of the year."
As of March 2018, the following is complete: The Milford yard has been cleared of trees. The Hopedale yard has been cleared; the old engine house, freight depot, most of the yard's track have been removed. The line from North Grafton to Mendon Street in Hopedale has been rebuilt. Improvements include new ties, relayed stone ballast and extensive ditch work; the West Upton yard had its switches and track refurbished with new stone ballast. Two new spurs were built; the remaining old crossing signals at Upton Street in Grafton, Mendon Street and Greene Street in Hopedale, South Main Street in Milford have been removed. The propane facility in North Grafton has been completed. New grade crossings along the entire line have been installed, including through Hopedale and Milford. New crossing signals have been installed at North Street, Jordan Boulevard, Upton Street in Grafton. Signals in Upton at Williams Street, Hartford Avenue, Maple Avenue, Pleasant Street have been installed. In July 2011, the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization started studies into extending Franklin Line service from Forge Park/495 into Milford and Hopedale.
This study would be the first study into this since a former study in 1997, which concluded that the extension was not high-priority. The study looked into a station in Hopedale, near the owned
Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge
The Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge, a vertical lift bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts near Buzzards Bay, carries railroad traffic across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the mainland. The bridge was constructed beginning in 1933 by the Public Works Administration from a design by firms Parsons, Klapp and Douglas as well as Mead and White, for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which operates both the bridge and the canal; the bridge has a 544-foot main span, with a 135-foot clearance when raised, uses 1,100-short-ton counterweights on each end, opened on December 29, 1935. The bridge replaced a bascule bridge, built in 1910. At the time of its completion, it was the longest vertical lift span in the world, it is now the second longest lift bridge in the United States, the longest being the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge between New Jersey and Staten Island, New York. The bridge is owned and maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers. In 2002, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge underwent a major rehabilitation, including replacement of cables and electrical systems, at a cost of $30 million and was reopened in 2003.
The rail line over the bridge, owned by MassDOT, is used by Massachusetts Coastal Railroad and seasonal tourist trains operated by the Cape Cod Central Railroad. The bridge is used by the CapeFLYER, a seasonal passenger train that began operation between Boston South Station and Hyannis on May 24, 2013. Bourne Bridge Sagamore Bridge Vertical Lift Railroad Bridge Brochure - U. S. Army Corps of Engineers 13 Historic Photos of the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge - Curbed Cape Cod, May 24, 2013
