Can Legislators Get MBTA Project Back on Track?

The images couldn’t be more stark than the train track that ends abruptly just short of the road crossing with Route 115 in Norfolk.

In fact, the effort to restore a second set of tracks to Franklin, which had been in place for a century prior to MBTA modernization in the 1980s, should have been nearing completion by now but perennial budget problems, worsened by a Covid ridership collapse, led the transit agency to simply halt work earlier this summer.

Now, state representative Jeff Roy, is working to get the MBTA back on board to bring the effort to a swift conclusion. Writing to MBTA general manager, Steve Poftak, along with senate president Karen Spilka and Becca Rausch, he noted, “We know that work must continue in order to restore confidence and reliability so that customers will return.”

In fact, earlier this month, the MBTA announced that it would be receiving some $860 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to help maintain services and jobs – but that money doesn’t appear to be directly applicable to the construction project.

According to Lisa Battiston, an MBTA spokesperson, the Franklin branch right of way was originally built as a two-track system. While the addition of the second track could allow for more service, the real intent is to make the rail line more resilient, she explained.

“The existing single track means that there are no opportunities to work around various issues that slow or stop trains,” she noted. Those issues can include routine track and signal maintenance, automobiles issues at grade crossings, slow running or stopped trains (both passenger and freight), track issues, or issues with detection systems. “All cause potential problems for schedule adherence; the second track allows a train dispatcher to route the train around a work crew, another train, or a problem on a track,” she added.

Battiston said there is a switch that needs to be removed about a mile west of the platform at Walpole station. The Project is then continuous from that switch location to the station at Norfolk where there is a lot of work completed, but also a section of single track that is waiting for the addition of the second track. Just outbound of the Norfolk station, there was significant work done to stabilize a rock face and to add drainage systems, she explained. Historically, the second track existed for much of this distance toward Franklin. The double track will go back to single track as the line approaches the beginning of the Franklin layover facility, adjacent to the railroad right-of-way, she added.

The planned improvements will eventually involve other parts of the line, as well, she said.

Below: Looking toward Franklin from Norfolk MBTA platform.