Belmont station
Looking across Concord Ave. at the stairs to the outbound platform.
Belmont station
Yup, the temporary closure of the line for ATC installation is part of the reason I'm doing this.
Belmont station
Sigh. Low-level platforms are going to be the story of this line, unfortunately. Out of 19 pre-2021 stations on the Fitchburg Line, only four have full-high platforms, and another nine are completely inaccessible, lacking even mini-high platforms.
Belmont station
In the distance, east of the station, contractors work on the PTC/ATC installation — that's why the service is suspended on weekdays in addition to weekends.
Belmont station
Looking back down the outbound platform at the station.
Belmont station
The station building, seen here from the Royal Road side, is currently occupied by the Lions Club. At left, a pedestrian tunnel under the tracks leads to Concord Ave.
Belmont station
The west side of the station, with stairs up to the inbound platform
Waverley station
While Belmont station is on a viaduct, Waverley station (also in the town of Belmont) is in an open cut. Waverley looks to be in very poor condition. There's little parking here, but lots of bus (and trolleybus) service; with some investment and fare integration, it could be a useful transfer station for travelers whose destinations are in Boston rather than Cambridge.
Waverley station
I guess they tried to hide the disintegrating concrete by covering it with paint, but it's clearly not working on the outbound stairs. The sign is a bit of an oddity, because there's no crossing provided at platform level; I'm somewhat surprised that there's no fence between the tracks here.
Waverley station
Looking down the whole length of the station from the west end of the outbound platform. Of course it's both below standard length and low-level, although there's plenty of room in the right of way to fix both. (The T will refuse to fix either of these because they would be required to install elevators if they made any substantial modification to the station, and they're very bad at elevators.)
Waverley station
OK, I did actually dash across the tracks despite there not being a proper grade crossing, just to get a better look at the spalling concrete on the wall below the stairs. The retaining wall proper seems to be on acceptable condition, so it must be an issue with water management on the stairs.
Waverley station
The stairs on the inbound side are not in fact any better.
Waverley station
Umm, folks? This is a serious maintenace problem.
Former site of Beaver Brook station
Immediately south of US 20 (Main St.) in Waltham, the line narrows to a single track for about a mile. Waltham Lumber on Massasoit St. stores some of their inventory on the site of the former Beaver Brook station, which was closed early on in the MBTA era. The yellow stripe is all that's left of the former platform, which last saw passengers in 1978.
Former site of Beaver Brook station
Lumber storage continues east along the line under the US 20 bridge.
Former site of Beaver Brook station
The former station is at least memorialized by this signal house for the interlocking.
Former site of Beaver Brook station
I assume the truck stored under the overpass is the lumberyard's.
Former site of Beaver Brook station
On the other side of US 20, there is Petco and a CVS sharing a huge parking lot, and across Route 60 is Waltham District Court and a dense residential neighborhood. In a Regional Rail model, this would be a priority station to restore, because it could both serve local residents and businesses, and relieve the #70 bus, which is the primary transit service provided to Waltham and western Watertown. There's plenty of room in the right-of-way to support a two-track, high-platform station with ramps up to this parking lot and elevators to US 20 for bus connections.
Waltham station
Now on to one o the weirdest stations on the line, Waltham. We're looking at the city parking lot right now, which is closed for some reason, towards the extremely substandard inbound platform. The single-track section ends just west of Moody Street, which is behind me, and the outbound platform is located on the (mainly) double-track right of way.
Waltham station
Much to my surorise, the mini-high platforms at Waltham are constructed of wood, which I thought had been banned after a fire on Metro-North in Connecticut in the early 1980s.
Waltham station
Perhaps the city built the mini-highs? That's the only plausible explanation I can come up with (and it would explain the nonstandard signsage as well).
Waltham station
I have every reason to think this is the original Waltham station, or at least the original station location, at the east end of the inbound platform (which is only 390ish feet long, so inbound trains block the grade crossing while serving the station).
Waltham station
Looking west back at the wooden mini-high; signals in the distance at the Moody St. grade crossing
Waltham station
Signals for the double-track interlocking are located on the near side of the Moody St. grade crossing. The right-of-way here is two tracks wide, but for some reason there's only one track.
Waltham station
So don't try clinging to the side of an MBTA commuer rail train, ok?
Waltham station
At the east end of the station there are, unusually, a couple of bus shelters on the platform. While most low-level stations do have shelters, they are typically much larger; these are very obviously the same shelters as are used on bus routes elsewhere in the system. The service change notice over the trash barrel explains that this line is being bustituted until May.
Waltham station
The building that I surmise is the old B&M Waltham station is now a Waltham police substation and visitor center. You can see a B&M-style station sign mounted on the fascia of the overhang at right.
Waltham station
Pretty clear that the line is closed for construction. The right-of-way here is clearly two tracks wide; why is the neckdown west of Moody?
Waltham station
Looking west from Elm St. back toward the Moody St. grade crossing. There's clearly enough room for two tracks here; in fact, Google Maps thinks there still are two tracks here. Why isn't this a two-track station? Perhaps it's because the whole block simply isn't long enough: it's barely 500 feet long, and MBTA trains can be up to 800 feet long, so a proper station here would block both Moody and Elm for stops in both directions. (two 75m FLIRTs would just barely fit, but would occupy the track circuit and keep the gates down for the full dwell time.)
Waltham station
This is the old Waltham tower, which managed the interlocking with the Watertown Branch, which formerly turned south here to cross the Charles before crossing back into Watertown.
Waltham station
Waltham tower still has its old semaphore signal!
Waltham station
Now looking west from Moody St. down the length of the outbound platform, with the switch machine for the interlocking in the immediate foreground. At the far end, another mini-high..
Waltham station
This is a triple-track right of way. It's not at all obvious to me why a substandard platform was built here; there's plenty of room farther west, and a longer platform would reduce the amount of time the Moody St. crossing is blocked.
Waltham station
See those little white square signs? They tell the engineer where to stop based on the number of coaches in the train. They go up to 7, which means that at least two coaches of a crowded rush-hour train won't platform here. I do not understand why they did this when there's plenty of room for a full-length platform.
Waltham station
Looking from the end of the wooden mini-high back toward Moody St.
Waltham station
I walked a little bit past the end of the platform to see if I could puzzle out why they didn't build it full-length. Note that the double-track segment is signaled for bidirectional operation.
Waltham station
Off in the distance, you can see the broken and avandoned third track. I think this right-of-way is wide enough that you could build a full-length center platform west of Moody with a ramp at the grade crossing. Why didn't they?
Brandeis/Roberts station
Still in Waltham here, but getting to our first "oceans of parking" station of this tour, Brandeis/Roberts. The Brandeis campus is located up South St. to the right; at my back are athletic fields.
Brandeis/Roberts station
As is usual, the mini-high platforms are located at the end of the platform farthest from Boston, so the accessible coach is the one closest to the locomotive — often a single-level coach.
Brandeis/Roberts station
For an agency that supposedly prefers not to have pedestrians crossing the railroad at grade, the MBTA sure does have a lot of pedestrian grade crossings!
Brandeis/Roberts station
On the inbound side of the station, across Sawyer St., there is a suburban office complex and apartment complex, and, at the far end, a cemetery.
Brandeis/Roberts station
An awful lot of the stations on this line are on curves...
Brandeis/Roberts station
About halfway down the platform is a small, heavily vandalized wooden shelter.
Brandeis/Roberts station
Looking back towards the South St. end of the station an the mini-highs. I don't know what this signal is for; there are no switches west of here.
Brandeis/Roberts station
Another wooden mini-high. At least Waltham has semi-accessible stations, I guess.
Brandeis/Roberts station
Close-up of the platform edge treatment; I wonder if these fold down like the ones on the Worcester Line.
Kendal Green station
After COVID-19 related service cuts, Kendal Green is the only station in the town of Weston still open, in large part because it's the only one with meaningful parking and therefore ridership. The commuter parking here is town-owned and runs along the road at left, which leads to a landscaping supplier and the town transfer station. About 500 feet beyond the signal is a bridge where the former Central Massachusetts RR crossed the Fitchburg; it's now the Mass Central Rail Trail.
Kendal Green station
There's a cute little station house on the west side of Church Street. Unfortunately, the platform (singular) is not so cute.