Questions about Foxboro trains
At a meeting called by Walpole's legislative delegation about a proposed Foxboro rail pilot project, "it appeared that the MBTA was very much in favor of this immediate expansion," Rep. John Rogers, D-Norwood, wrote in a Dec. 1 letter.

"Questions abound as to who the proponents of the expansion of the Franklin Line to Foxboro are and the collaboration of the MBTA in this effort," Rogers noted in his letter to the Worcester law firm that paid for a study backing a Foxboro pilot project to start as early as next spring.

In the letter, Rogers raises a number of safety and quality-of-life objections. "It is absolutely unacceptable that signals in South Walpole in particular would not be in place before even a pilot program would be implemented," he wrote.

Rogers also writes that he does not understand how a pilot project that does not appear in any of the T's planning or project schedules has jumped to the head of the line.

In addition to the points raised by Rogers, there's at least one additional puzzlement in the law firm's report. The consultants use the same Foxboro ridership figures for the pilot project as contained in the MBTA's 2010 report on the possibility of a considerably more extensive and expensive Foxboro-Boston project.

The T's 2010 report estimates that 990 persons would board trains each weekday in Foxboro, with morning departures at 4:56, 6:02, 6:28, 6:59, 7:52 and 8:29 and a total of 16 daily round trips. The law firm's consultants use the same 990 figure for the pilot with departures only at 5:27, 6:07, 6:37 and 8:27 a.m. and a total of 10 daily roundtrips, dependent on obtaining a $20-million set of locomotive and coaches. Without the new set, the 6:07 a.m. departure would be scratched. (The pilot's gap between 6:37 and 8:27 a.m. results from MBTA insistence that Foxboro trains not disrupt Franklin or Dorchester branch service.)

Of the 990 pilot boarders, 330 would be people who now use trains from other stations, including Walpole, attracted to Foxboro by unlimited, free parking provided at the stadium. If the same $4 parking fee was charged at Foxboro as at other stations, the boarding estimate would drop by 45 percent; at $2, the drop would be 20 percent, according to the pilot report.

If the pilot project were to begin in the spring, it would do so without much of the track and signal work called for later and barring a surprise, without a new train set. At least at the start, the project would be a test mainly of the drawing power of free parking -- something the cash-starved T might not be expected to be eager to learn.

So why would the T be onboard a pilot study that does not involve a railyard or any of the Walpole-Boston improvements its own 2010 report finds to be needed for Foxboro service? The usual Kraft speculation aside, part of the answer might be in that photo below from the 2010 MBTA study. The report says only 10 to 15 acres of the 165-acre Bird Machine site would be used for a train yard, and only for the Foxboro/Franklin line. Elsewhere in their report, the consultants detail the T's need for additional yard capacity for its entire southside network.

Baker Hughes, the owner of the Bird Machine site, has indicated that the property is to be set aside for conservation. And even if the property were on the market, it's hard to see how the state or the MBTA could find the money or political support to bid for it.

But for relatively few dollars, especially without a new train set, a pilot project just might be a beginning of a process toward implementing the 2010 report that otherwise would just sit on the shelf -- a prospect that has to be of interest to T planners.

Rep. Winslow: No public money
Dan Winslow, R-Norfolk, who also represents Walpole in the House, has written to the MBTA, objecting to any further use of public money (pdf) or staff time on Foxboro rail until decisions are made on what's going to get built around the stadium.

The law firm's pilot study envisions eventual fast train service to the stadium from Worcester and the T's Providence (and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor) tracks. In his letter, Winslow writes, that "potential development of a casino at the Foxboro stadium has validated my concern that rail expansion should not be considered separately from possible land uses... I am writing to request that no public funds or resources (including personnel) be expended in support of rail expansion to Foxboro from Boston/Walpole, Providence or Worcester."

-- Tom Glynn

This map from a 2010 MBTA report on a Foxboro commuter rail extension identifies three sites for an overlay and maintenance train yard described as a must for a project. Sites 1 and 2 abut the stadium and Patriot Place. Site 3, the former Bird Machine property in South Walpole, owned by a Texas oil field services company, is the report's favored option.

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