Tracking Transportation/ Transportation

T notes: Train derailed while using 46-year-old switch

Site for new Quincy bus garage obtained for $38.2m

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MBTA OFFICIALS said the new Orange Line train that derailed on March 16 did so in a work zone near Wellington Station while moving slowly from one track to another using a 46-year-old switch.

Jeff Gonneville, deputy general manager of the MBTA, declined to say whether 46 years exceeded the useful life of the switch. He said it would all depend on how much use the switch received and how it was maintained over the years. “Newer is better,” he said at a meeting of the Fiscal and Management Control Board.

The T has not specified the cause of the crash, but Gonneville said a new switch has been installed, additional track is being replaced in the area, and the Orange Line train involved in the incident is being checked out top to bottom.

While the investigation goes on, the T is running shuttle buses between Oak Grove and Sullivan Square.

New site of Quincy garage purchased for $38.2m

The MBTA on Monday agreed to pay $38.2 million for a 13-acre parcel of land on Burgin Parkway in Quincy that will be the site of a bus repair garage capable of servicing electric vehicles.

The new garage, located at a former Lowe’s site at 599 Burgin Parkway across from the Quincy Adams T station, takes the place of an old, decrepit garage in Quincy that is long past its useful life.  It is also the first of what the T hopes are many new repair garages that are needed to transition away from diesel buses.

Several people complained during the public comment period for the Fiscal and Management Control Board that the T is moving too slowly to embrace electric buses. The current capital plan for the coming year calls for the purchase of 460 diesel-electric buses, which transportation advocates called “a retrograde step” and “a move in reverse” for an agency trying to help the state meet its climate change goals.

City, state officials press for electrification of 3 rail lines

 A host of state lawmakers and mayors pressed the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board on Monday to follow through on a promise made 17 months ago to electrify the Providence-Stoughton and Fairmount commuter rail lines and a section of the Newburyport/Rockport Line connecting Boston to Lynn.

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Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

Many of the officials also pressed for service as frequent – and at the same price – as subway service.

The mayors of Everett, Lynn, Revere, and Beverly and lawmakers representing many of those same communities left messages for the virtual meeting urging the T to launch a planning study on how to go about electrifying the tracks and procuring electric trains, often known as EMUs.

Joe Aiello, the chair of the control board, said he and his colleagues would take up the issue in April and Aiello indicated he wanted to pursue the study.

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