State to buy train tracks in $100m deal

October 2, 2008 11:59 AM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

Hailing expanded rail service as an investment that will improves people's lives, Massachusetts political leaders announced a $100 million deal today to buy train tracks from a private company. The goal is to improve commuter service between Boston and Central Massachusetts and obtain a key link for a new commuter line to Fall River and New Bedford.

"This is the future," said US Senator John F. Kerry, a Democrat running for reelection, who spoke with other officials at a press conference at South Station. "This is an investment in jobs. This is improvement in the quality of life."

Within a few years, the agreement could also speed travel and reduce delays between Boston and its western suburbs. It's a need that officials saw first hand this morning as they traveled by train from Worcester as part of the announcement.

“As we were coming out here at 9:30 … you could see the Mass Pike clog,” said Kerry, who mentioned a school teacher from Worcester he met on the train who lauded the effort to expand service. “This is life for her and many other people.”

Dozens of commuters gathered around the politicians at South Station as they gave speeches that were frequently interrupted by train announcements. The long-awaited and wide-ranging deal between the state and CSX Transportation could take four years to complete and still faces some hurdles. But state officials are already promising short-term improvements in service and a long-term potential to boost the statewide economy.

"It's pretty significant for not only Worcester and Boston and communities in between," Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray said in an interview with the Globe on Wednesday. "Any time you can create more connections between the state's first- and second-largest cities, you create a lot of cross-pollination opportunities for jobs and housing, travel, tourism."

Train service has been a source of frustration all along the east-west corridor, where commuters from suburban towns such as Wellesley and Framingham have joined Worcester residents in demanding more frequent and more reliable service to Boston. Murray, a former Worcester mayor, ran for statewide office in part on promises to revamp service.

The Worcester-Framingham line is among the most popular for train commuters, carrying 4,000 to 5,000 passengers roundtrip every weekday. But it has long been plagued by delays, so many that the MBTA created new timetables in February that added as much as 12 minutes to the scheduled length of the trip. (Since the schedule change, official on-time performance has gone from 69 percent in January to 93 percent last month. It had fallen below 50 percent last fall.)

Under today's deal, improvements to service are expected to happen in stages.

The most immediate change will occur Oct. 27 and will primarily affect Worcester. Several trains on the western line that now end in Framingham will be allowed by CSX to make the entire roundtrip from Worcester to Boston. That will increase the number of daily trips leaving Worcester from 10 to 13. It will also boost the number of trains from Boston to Worcester from 10 to 12.

Bigger changes will happen later, when the state finally assumes ownership of the tracks and the right to dispatch and maintain them with less interference from CSX freight trains. That is not expected until 2012, but could happen sooner if the sides make progress on other issues ahead of time, according to several officials involved in negotiations.

Next June, long before it takes over the Worcester line, the state will buy the rights of way on the CSX tracks needed to build the Fall River-New Bedford line. The state will also buy CSX land near the Port of Boston to allow for the port's expansion and to maintain rail access there.

To clear access for more commuter trains on the Framingham-Worcester line, the state and CSX are working on several steps to shift freight trains off the line. The state pledged to reconfigure several bridges that go over the train line so CSX can stack freight containers higher -- carrying more goods in fewer trips. The state is also trying to help CSX move its local operations out of a 48-acre rail yard in Allston to Central Massachusetts, which would allow more trains to unload there instead of making the trip all the way east.

"The biggest thing about this deal is that we are able to accommodate the needs of both passengers and freight in a way that is good for both sides," said Lisa Mancini, a vice president of CSX.

Negotiations have been ongoing for about four years, involving state officials as well as Kerry and Representative James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat. The sides were at loggerheads over what CSX's liability would be if one of its freight trains were involved in an accident with a commuter rail train. The state and CSX have still not resolved that issue and are basically proceeding on faith that they can reach an agreement along the way.

"We were clouding every other issue because we couldn't get by liability," said Jeff Mullan, undersecretary for the executive office of transportation.