FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — When the Army-Navy football game was held in Massachusetts for the first time on Saturday, Dec. 9, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority helped transport the sellout crowd of 65,878 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, thanks to a branch line that serves the stadium.
Rail Development Corp.’s Pop-Up Metro concept played a supporting role, as the MBTA deployed one of Pop-Up’s portable platforms to facilitate the rapid unloading and loading of five trains (three to/from Boston, two to/from Providence, R.I.) at the single-track station.
The platforms are just one piece of the Pop-Up Metro concept [see “Pop-Up Metro aims to provide …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 1, 2021]. It envisions offering a low-cost complete transit package — battery-powered railcars, platforms, and other necessary elements to start from scratch — for smaller transit agencies or less-populated areas.
For the Army-Navy game, the portability of the platforms was ideal.
As for the game: Army won 17-11, but Navy still leads the all time series after 124 meetings, 62-55-7.
