Eastern Railroad Discussion > Boston Area Miscellany

Went out yesterday (mostly in the rain) to try to shoot a few locations around Boston.   I've always wanted a shot of a train on the Canton Viaduct, but I ended up there late in the day without much light left, so I'll have to go back.  But I have a question for TO members in the area - it seems like the viaduct is really hard to photograph, especially in the afternoon!   The west side is very tree-overgrown, and there are tons of electrical wires.  So wondering if anyone has advice?   It looks like the east side would be better for a morning shot, so maybe that's my answer.    Or get a drone or learn to fly helicopters....

1)  Southbound Amtrak Northeast Regional #175 crossing the Canton Viaduct.  The sun had just gone behind a cloud (of course!!), so the "warm glow" of the viaduct in late afternoon sun that many people have described is a little less prominent than it had been only seconds before! 
2)  Southbound MBTA Franklin line train at the former New Haven RR Walpole Station, crossing the CSX Mansfield-Framingham line. 
3)  Northbound MBTA Foxboro line train using the southeast leg of the wye at Walpole to pull onto the Franklin line.  Unfortunately these trains do not stop at Walpole - apparently when the Foxboro line was started, some of the Franklin line trains were diverted to serve Foxboro, but they did not make provision for a stop here, so Walpole lost some service. 
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/22 10:03 by dwatry.

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4)  Westbound Worcester line train at Framingham. 

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Thanks for posting these photos - Interesting scenes.
Bob

Thanks for the tour around my birthplace (Foxboro).
 

The trees have really grown up around Canton Viaduct since the only other time I was there back in February of 2004. What I did both times I was there was to make a score card of everything that should be going across the Viaduct and to shoot and then move on to another spot around the Viaduct. I also got slightly better angles by standing on the guardrail across the street on Neponset Street. The video is of Acela 2259 at 4:25 pm Sunday May 8th 2022. Picture is of MBTA 2811 at 4:54 pm same day.

Jim 

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When did the MBTA start running trains other than Patriots specials over the freight branch between Walpole and Mansfield?

toledopatch Wrote:
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> When did the MBTA start running trains other than
> Patriots specials over the freight branch between
> Walpole and Mansfield?

This is a restart of a pilot Foxboro-Boston service that initially began in October 2019 but was curtailed in Spring 2020 as the pandemic was getting off the ground. My recollection from reading various postings about the service in its early days was that travel time was slower than taking the T on the NE Corridor from either Mansfield or Sharon, both stations being 4-5 miles from Foxborough. As a consequence, commuter patronage at Foxborough/Gillette Stadium station was low.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/mbta-to-launch-commuter-rail-pilot-program-from-foxboro-to-south-station/2816524/