Charlie on the MTA

One of my many faults is that I often don't do my homework when I'm traveling to a new location and end up being surprised at what I find, but often only by coincidence.  Indeed on our trip to the Boston area last weekend I was surprised to find that Eileen's brothers house (where we were staying) was right next to an MBTA commuter line (Greenbush branch).  When we arrived some of the folks wanted to take a trip into central Boston on the train.  I asked where the nearest station was and they said "across the street!" Sure enough there was a path next to the tracks and between the trees that went to a station platform.  When's the next train? A quick look on the web (ain't smart phones grand) indicated it was in 10  minutes, so we hustled over there.

One of the nice features of MBTA stations is the numerous signs talking about the history of that line, the history of the surrounding area, and often some information on the local environment (more on that later). As it turns out this portion of the Old Colony Railway was abandoned in the 60's.  MBTA restored service here in 2007.  So the track structure and station platform are all new.

And low and behold for us electric railway fans this station actually has special historic significance. This is Nantasket Junction as there was once a short branch line that went off to the northeast to serve Paragon amusement park at Nantasket Beach (was this an Old Colony Railway park?).  Some of you may remember that the New Haven (Old Colony) experimented with main line electrification beginning in 1896.  That experiment was conducted on this short branch, with overhead current collection, an to the west of here with third rail current collection, this station was the Prairie Avenue of the New Haven.

Early New Haven electrification

Information on the experiment

Our Train arrived and was a typical MBTA commuter train, diesel powered push pull with a mixture of single level and bi level cars.  I had a quick chat with the conductor, and after him mentioning RS3s and DL109s on the New Haven, I knew we had something in common. Once I mentioned IRM he was asking about the electroliner and the E5, so we hit it off.  Seems he also wanted me to do his job.

The environmental issues at Nantasket Junction are related to its location in a turtle breeding ground.  These track features, which stumped me at first are to allow turtles to migrate across the tracks.  There were 6 or 7 of these along the platform.

New Providence Airport Platform

We had a second encounter with MBTA commuter service on Monday morning.  The (un)official airline of the Hicks Car Works was unable to accommodate us on our return journey to Chicago (the problem associated with traveling on a family SA pass).  We couldn't find any thing out of Boston that day but did find a fare on South West out of Providence. Luckily one of my other duties is a judge for the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance Association's W.W.Hay award.  I had just completed review of the entries and remembered that one was the construction of a new station on the NEC at the Providence airport.  So a trip to South Station (free on the Silver Line) got us a trip on the T to the new station. It worked out really well. I was reminded however that South West is the Walmart of airlines.