Category: MBTA

South Acton is a small commuter station that, while still in a rural area, isn’t exactly “middle of nowhere” like Littleton is. It’s also the last stop before trains run express to Porter Square during rush hour. So, with that in mind, let’s look at this station.

South Acton is a pretty bogstandard new-build Commuter Rail station with two side platforms, an overpass, and an elevator on each side for accessibility. Entrances also exist on each side towards local streets, and a sizable parking lot exists on the outbound side as well. The platforms are standard with wastebaskets, benches, and yellow dot matrix signage. There’s even a bike locker and …a busway? What bus could possibly stop here?!

*takes a look*

Oh….

WAIT YOU MEAN THE SIGNAGE FOR THE CAT BUS STILL EXISTS?! Well shit. Apparently, the bus actually DID pull in as well, so the CAT does in fact live on in a post-COVID world. Noone got on or off though, which has me thinking its ridership is nonexistent. Well, that’s sad. Apparently a Boxborough bus serves here too, but nothing came in so as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a concept of a plan. And, if you’re willing to walk, you can actually reach the town center. It’s just a mile! Overall, not bad though!

The good: It’s got buses! Furthermore, it’s fully accessible, has an overpass, elevators that don’t reek of piss, and there’s actually something close by!

The bad: There really isn’t that much, but it’s still better than nothing. I genuinely don’t have a lot negative to say.

Nearby points of interest: There isn’t a lot in the immediate vicinity, but I heard the Discovery Museum is pretty cool! (walk north on Main St.!)

Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Fitchburg)
Cross-Acton Transit
Boxborough Fixed Route (allegedly???)

Overall, I don’t have anything bad to say. Pretty good and inoffensive. Yay!

Rating: 8.5/10

Littleton/495 is a big park & ride station out in, well, Littleton. Located adjacent to the interchange between Rte. 2 and I-495 off Foster Street, it’s surprisingly very rural. Well, I endured an arctic blast to be able to talk about this station. So, here we are, at Littleton/I-495.

The station is like most park & ride locations in that it does not have a station house or anything. It’s also located pretty far from anything walkable and, as such, gets most of its ridership from people driving in from places like Boxborough, Westford, and Harvard. Hell, MART even runs a peak-hour shuttle from here to Harvard’s town hall. Outside that, the platform is an island with a pretty standard setup. Two tracks, and a ramp to the parking lots. Yellow dot matrix signs exist, as does some history and benches. Nevertheless, this station is a big improvement from what existed before 2013. Just imagine a rinky dinky little shitty microstation with about 20 spots, similar to Ayer in appearance. Yeah. This one’s a big improvement.

The good: It’s a bigass park & ride off the junction of two highways! It’s also fully accessible!

The bad: …there’s nothing nearby.

Nearby points of interest: Absolutely nothing. Seriously. Absolutely freakin’ nothing.

Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Fitchburg)
MART (Boston Shuttle, Harvard Commuter)

Overall, yeah it’s nothing special to go home about. Sorry. 🙁

Rating: 6/10

Fitchburg is a modestly-sized city in north-central Massachusetts. Located along the Nashua River, it is the namesake for the Commuter Rail line serving the city, and historically, the railroad company that served the northern bits of Central and Western Massachusetts. Now, let’s look at the station itself.

The station used to be the terminus of the line until 2016, when the 4.5 mile extension to the Wachusett park & ride opened. Even before this, it was the longest northside line, and the longest line on weekends (trains do not serve Wickford Junction on weekends). The setup is actually pretty simple: you have a siding and two through tracks for freight trains, with the station bearing a mini-high platform and a low-level section that goes a while. The platform is also curved, bears a sheltered area, has seating and wastebaskets, and yellow dot matrix signs. There is also a parking garage and a number of bus berths for MART buses. The MART building was also open when I came here, with a restroom, a decently-sized waiting area, a yellow dot matrix sign for the Commuter Rail, a cafe (that was closed), and even a ticketing office and a taxi office. Sadly, part of it was closed off due to an unfortunate incident, but it was nice and warm no less. Neato! It was also pretty impressive to see the seemingly giant rolling hills from here. There, however, IS a future for this station: a major stop on Northern Tier Rail! If this comes to be, it’d be one of several stops on a proposed state-funded train route between North Station and North Adams (via Greenfield and Fitchburg).

The good: It serves downtown Fitchburg! Furthermore, it’s accessible (unlike most of the Fitchburg Line), has an open waiting room on weekends, and has plenty of parking. Furthermore, if proposals come to fruition with Northern Tier Rail, this station will also become an Amtrak station! Neat!

The bad: I don’t have a lot of negatives to say. I guess the upper level of the garage being closed in winter? Why is it a mini-high and not full-length though? I genuinely don’t have anything to say bad.

Nearby points of interest: Fitchburg and the places MART can bring you! This IS their central hub, after all!

Transit connections:
MART (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, Boston Shuttle, Clinton/Worcester Shuttle, Wachusett Commuter Shuttle, FSU Shuttle, Intercity/MWCC Shuttle)
Commuter Rail (Fitchburg)

Overall, it’s a really good station, with a lot of connections and pretty much most of MART is accessible here. I genuinely don’t have a lot negative to say about it, and is something I genuinely expect from an intermodal transit center in a modestly-sized city.

Rating: 8/10

Ah, goody, a new bus route! Well, after doing my entry on Brandeis/Roberts, I’ve gotten the 553 to head back towards Newton and the Green Line. The route’s layover point is at the stop at Angleside Road, adjacent to the Commuter Rail’s inbound platform. After getting pics of the station, I went up to the bus and boarded.

The route begins going down South Street, opening the doors at the crossing, closing them, and continuing, largely serving Brandeis. Eventually, though, after a short deviation into Boston Children’s Waltham hospital and back out, we would turn down Main Street and eventually into Central Square. We picked up some people, however it wasn’t a lot. But, we did get a number of people from the Commuter Rail station in Waltham’s town center. The driver, however, did fuck someone over by not letting them board with a bicycle. Whoops.

We cross the tracks over into southern Waltham and, soon enough, Newton. Along the way it was much of the same, town center-y vibes to go around, until it became single-family housing again. We turned down Maple St., and back onto Moody St., and kept going down it until it became Lexington and River Streets. Soon enough, thankfully, though, things would become a little denser as we turned down Elm Street, looped around West Newton’s Commuter Rail station through a mini-Supercollider. We exited at Washington Street, continued down it, passing by Newtonville, and eventually we reached the infamous Newton Supercollider at Newton Corner. One complete loop around it and we were done, as the bus would return to the garage from whence it came. YAY!

The good: It serves Brandeis University! It also serves a considerable amount of suburban Newton as well, and Waltham’s CR station! It’s also West Newton’s sole full-time bus connection.

The bad: It could use better headways… (also, it used to run express into downtown?!). It also doesn’t run Sundays.

Nearby points of interest: Brandeis University, Washington St. (Newton), and Waltham Center mainly.

Overall, it’s a decent route. It could use better headways and Sunday service, but all things considered, it’s solid as-is, if a little low ridership. Say, what’s the plan for this post-BNRD, anyways?

*looks up the BNRD*

Huh, apparently the plan calls for axing this for a new route 53 to serve Brandeis, originating at Market Basket, and terminating at Woodland Station. It also calls for 50-90 minute headways, and …not serving Central Square? Weird choice, MBTA. Replacing Waltham CR-Newton Corner service would have a new route 58 running at similar headways but otherwise running the same route, with an extension out to Watertown Yard. I mean…it’s not the worst thing, but I do wonder what makes it worthwhile splitting this into two, rather than at least extending the proposed route 53 to deviate, in a way, to Central Square. Yeah, I feel kinda mixed about this, but I’m also not exactly the target demographic (I do not ride the 553 regularly)

Rating: 6.5/10

Getting around to doing this entry was surprisingly difficult as I also had to time it in a way where I’d be able to take the 553 to get out. Fortunately, I was able to do exactly that. Unfortunately, I had all of 5 minutes, and as such this probably won’t be the finest Chelsea’s Corner entry. I digress, welcome to Roberts.

Brandeis/Roberts is located on the Brandeis University campus in Waltham. Who’s Robert? Well, that’s actually the name of the neighborhood that Brandeis (& this train station) is located in. The 553 has a bus connection on the south side of the South Street grade crossing. On the southbound platform, you have what looks like a sheltered waiting area, benches, a red dot matrix sign (two actually!), and a small amount of parking. Meanwhile, the north platform has a lot less and a slightly larger lot. There’s also a mini-high that’s fully sheltered. Neat! Changing sides is done either with a grade crossing near the mini-high, or at the South Street crossing. The land-use of the station is dominated by Brandeis University, with a small office park on the south side. Otherwise, it’s all residential with apartment complexes nearby and the odd strip mall.

The good: It serves Brandeis! Furthermore, it’s accessible and has a bus connection (albeit relatively infrequent). It also serves the mildly dense Roberts and Angleside neighborhoods – there’s apartment complexes, for what it’s worth. The mini-high looks kinda cool, for what it’s worth, too!

The bad: For a station that serves Brandeis University, service is kinda relatively infrequent, between the 553 and the Commuter Rail. Also, that grade crossing can cause issues if a train is stopped at the mini-high. 🙁

Nearby points of interest: Brandeis is the big one!

Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Fitchburg)
MBTA bus (553)

Overall, it’s an alright station. Pretty good, even, by Fitchburg Line standards! YAY! It’s otherwise pretty average, disappointingly. Oh well!

Rating: 7.5/10

Most people probably know of Greenbush as Scituate’s main MBTA station. However, there’s also another station in the village of North Scituate, that’s not as big parking-wise, but still has things to do around it. Let’s look at it.

After taking GATRA GO here (RIP the SLOOP), the first thing I noticed was the parking lot. It was considerably smaller vs. Greenbush’s. Also, there’s actually stuff to do around here! I mean, yeah, it still isn’t a lot, but it’s better than a lonely convenience store and Dunks, with transit-oriented unaffordable housing. In terms of the station itself, it’s essentially a copy-paste of Greenbush. And, as I said earlier, North Scituate is a small village (sadly not the main economic center – that’s Scituate Harbor and the Greenbush Line goes nowhere near there), but the fact it’s walkable at all is good. It does annoy me there’s no density near the station but eh, whatever. It could be worse.

The good: It’s actually located in an inhabited area and isn’t just a sea of parking! There’s even a nice little walkpath!

The bad: There really isn’t any decent land use aside from the small village nearby. No affordable housing either but meh, whatever.

Nearby points of interest: North Scituate looks cool!

Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Greenbush)
GATRA (GATRA GO)

Overall, I don’t have too much to say about this station. I mean, it passes and is the bar for what a useful station should be for anyone. It’s overall not that bad.

Rating: 8/10

Alrighty, the last entry on the Franklin Line! Let’s see what’s special, if anything, about Dedham Corporate Center (or, Dedham Corp/128, as some signage might refer to it as).

Dedham Corporate Center is located on Rustcraft Road, located near the interchange of US-1 and I-95 in Dedham. Adjacent to it is an office park on the Boston-bound side, which also houses a hotel, some medical offices, suburbia, the county DA’s office, and even a Cummins plant. All of the station’s parking is also located here. On the Franklin/Foxboro-bound side, you have a bit more useful to the average person: some transit-oriented housing, a kiss & ride, a slightly lesser amount of suburbia, and even the Legacy Place shopping center and a Costco. General Dynamics is also out here, and the 34E is a stone’s throw away across US-1.

*gets call*

…wait, waht? It’s just “Providence Highway” on the inner side of I-95? Okay then. So, cross the Providence Highway to get to the 34E on Washington Street. I did this, it was not fun. Almost got hit and killed. Would be nice if the 34E deviated into Legacy Place and the station’s kiss & ride. I digress. Legacy Place is your standard lifestyle center, with parking and flanked on all sides by shopping. Not much to say about it. Overall, not the worst station to finish off with. I will say though, the platform does seem a little short for game day sets to platform (they stop here), but it’s serviceable otherwise.

The good: It serves an apartment complex, some offices, and Legacy Place! It’s also in a pretty important location for park & ride passengers from I-95 and for those who don’t want to use Endicott or Islington.

The bad: The 34E really oughta deviate here. Lastly, the pedestrian experience going from the station to Legacy Place isn’t the best, to put it lightly. It also oughta have an extended and full-level high platform so the football train can fully platform here. And, I guess, by extension there also oughta be an overpass or tunnel connecting the two sides.

Nearby points of interest: Legacy Place is the big one!

Transit connections:
Commuter Rail (Franklin, Foxboro)

Overall, while it isn’t the best, it sure as hell is better to end the line here than on the last entry in terms of order of publishing. At least Dedham Corp. actually has stuff around it other than a shopping center and has some degree of an actual walkshed that isn’t Oops! All Parking! However, there are some relatively minor changes that would be nice. Overall, not bad though.

Rating: 6.5/10