BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority debuts its pilot program offering commuter service to Foxborough, Mass., today as part of its fall revision of commuter train schedules.
The Foxborough trains, serving a community which had previously only seen trains for New England Patriots football games and other special events at Gillette Stadium, are being offered on an 11-month trial. [See “MBTA to begin Foxborough service in October,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 19, 2019.]
Schedules for the Foxborough service and other MBTA revisions are available at the MBTA website.
SERIOUS mileage collector alert: at Walpole the Foxboro’ trains are using a leg of the wye (I’m told it’s called the Lewis track/wye) running from Old Colony northbound to NY&NE/Franklin line inbound. This leg has NOT been covered by recent Mass Bay trips–I don’t even have it while I have the two legs on the north side of the Franklin line, the east one gotten in a Lake Shore detour in 1981 and the west one by the Mass. Bay trip to Leominster and Milford in 1990. Also, at Readville some of the Foxboro’ trains are being routing over the year-old bridge over the B&P/Shore Line/AMTK to run in the NY&NE/2nd District/Dorchester/Fairmount line.
In downtown Mansfield Old Colony Ave looks like it’s on the old alignment used until about 1955 for the Mansfield -Taunton line. There was a major grade crossing elimination project in Mansfield in the 1950’s that eliminated crossings on the B&P (OK–AMTK Shore Line!) and the other route. What they might give to have the Mansfield-Taunton line back today: a swift route to Taunton, Fall River, and New Bedford without overburdening today’s Old Colony service! But in 1992 when the Old Colony planners told us their plans for single-track with one passing siding between Boston and South Braintree we told them it should be double-track all the way!
Thanks Thomas for the muchly info. This route Foxborough to Taunton if kept would have been an alternative to rebuilding the missing Stoughton – Taunton link.
The former spider’s web of routes of the Old Colony, NY&NE and B&P in Norfolk, Plymouth and Bristol Counties is fascinating – from Boston down to the Massachusetts South Coast and Cape Cod and southwesterly toward Providence and Hartford. This adds up to a sizable chunk of real estate. SE Massachusetts is no postage stamp. It’s fascinating to learn that even places like North Attleborough (Massachusetts) and Narragansett Race Track (Rhode Island) once had rail service.
I assume they’re using the stadium parking lots which would be empty most of the time. Very often commuter rail expansion is all about providing more parking spaces. On the nearby Attleboro/ Providence line (i.e. the Amtrak main) parking is maxed out at Sharon and Mansfield (two towns bordering Foxboro).
I’d need to look at the schedules – from knowing the area I assume Foxboro service would run substantially slower than on the parallel Amtrak main. As a guess I’d say Foxboro to Boston (via the branch line) would take at least twenty minutes longer than Sharon or Mansfield to Boston (via the Amtrak main).
PAUL – Thanks for the insider knowledge. Now a question for you. There’s a funny little street – i.e. no frontage of housing or commercial) that crosses the Foxboro(ugh) – Mansfield town line (which is also the Norfolk – Bristol county line) just south of Mansfield center. Could this be the ROW of the Foxboro(ugh) – Taunton branch which must have been the least useful and the first to go in the New Haven empire.
This street reminds me of a street going northwest from downtown Royal Oak, Michigan, which passes through a residential neighborhood but has no houses on it. What is this street? It’s the ROW of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad Detroit to Pontiac main before the grade-separated relocation of the 1930’s. Before the grade separation the railroad ran along a then-narrower Woodward Avenue (Michigan Trunk Line Highway M-1) into Pontiac, and this street connected GTW from its Woodward alignment (to the north) into Royal Oak (to the south) .
And my major question. Does Foxboro(ugh) still have white fire engines? Only place I ever saw such.
The rail line through Foxboro was completed in 1870 and leased by the Old Colony RR in 1879, which was then leased by the New Haven in 1893. Regular passenger service ended on the line in 1933, but it remained an important freight route. PC took over in 1969. Special football trains from both Boston and Providence started under PC in 1971 for the inaugural “New England Patriots” season (before that, they were known as the “Boston Patriots”) to Schaefer Stadium (later Sullivan, then Foxboro, now Gillette).
If you look on the diagrams of PC and CR, the stop/station was known as “Bay State”. This was either due to the Bay State Raceway (a horse trotter track) which was between the tracks and the football stadium, or due to the original name given to the Patriots in Foxboro, which was the Bay State Patriots. That was until someone suggested to the Patriots that headline writers would shorten it to “BS Pats”. The name was hastily changed to “New England Patriots”.
Yes, the trip times from Foxboro/Gillette to South Station (55 to 65 min.) are longer than it is from Mansfield (31 to 46 min.). But then, Mansfield is Zone 6 (monthly pass $340) while Foxboro/Gillette is only Zone 4 ($281) so there is a $59 monthly savings for your extra time.
Foxboro already maintains a Foxboro Residents Only parking lot on the Foxboro portion the old Mansfield freight yard. The town pays for a free shuttle bus to take Foxboro residents to and from their cars during commuting times as the walk is 3/4 of a mile (and without sidewalks for about half of that).