Middleboro/Lakeville station
Is that a train I see parked at the train station?
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Nearly the only thing parked at the train station! Of course, it was a Saturday. The 769-space lot served nearly 870 passengers a day in 2018.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
The train at the platform leaves in 17 minutes.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
This train is led by #1825, a Hyundai-Rotem CTC-5 Control Trailer Coach.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
It has a green signal, but it's not leaving for another 15 minutes.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Looking up the line towards the three-level overpass where Route 105, I-495, and the railroad all cross at a single point.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Looking down the length of the platform toward the control coach. This platform is longer than the standard length, at least a thousand feet — did they build it to Amtrak specs?
Middleboro/Lakeville station
The train is being pushed by MPI HSP46 #2019.
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Looking down the Cape Main south of the platform
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Looking back up the platform as it curves around
Middleboro/Lakeville station
Standard steel canopy with modern departure display and trash cans; bollards at left mark the drop-off section of the parking lot.
Bridgewater station
I have absolutely no clue what the enormous turnaround circle is for — BAT buses?
Bridgewater station
Bridgewater State University campus buildings face the 500-space MBTA parking lot and a wooded strip separating it from the station proper. In the 2018 counts, this was the second most popular station on the line, after only Middleboro/Lakeville, with nearly 590 daily passengers — surprising for a station sited to be convenient only to the university campus and not the rest of the town.
Bridgewater station
Ramp at the north end of the platform
Bridgewater station
Loooooong ramp at the north end of the platform
Bridgewater station
Looking north toward Brockton from the end of the ramp
Bridgewater station
Oops, I lied, the ramp still has another few feet to go
Bridgewater station
Standard design steel canopies but no fancy departure displays this time, just the usual scrolling LED message board.
Bridgewater station
There is a mid-platform exit (non-accessible) to the parking lot.
Bridgewater station
At the south end of the platform, there is again a ramp down to ground level, this time paired with a staircase.
Bridgewater station
Unusually for MBTA stations, the canopy runs nearly ⅔ of the length of the platform (there's a 280-foot gap in the middle but both ends of the platform are sheltered).
Campello station
Another 500+-space surface parking lot, but that's way more than the 325 passengers a day who used this station, located in the southern part of the city of Brockton, in 2018.
Campello station
It's just one long, straight, relatively well maintained platform.
Campello station
Looking south along the line from the station, it appears that when this overpass was last rebuilt, it was not made wide enough for two tracks, although the right-of-way through the station is clearly wide enough (and it broadens to three tracks wide through most of the city).
Campello station
Ooh, it's a train! I think this is a southbound train, being pulled by MBTA #2031, another HSP46.
Campello station
The trailing control car is #1806, another Rotem CTC-5. All the Old Colony lines have restricted rolling stock: as the only lines that are 100% high-platform, they are equipped with remote door release (as these relatively new bilevel coaches are).
Campello station
At the north end of the platform, a freight siding begins; the actual double-track section through downtown only begins a half-mile south of Brockton station.
Campello station
There are a number of active freight customers along the line, served by CSX out of their Middleboro yard, notably three separate recyclers in Brockton. Trojan Recycling, at the south end of the siding at left, fills open-top cars with recovered materials and then shoves them out onto the siding to the north where they accumulate until CSX comes to pick them up.
Campello station
The only sign of disrepair I saw: apparently the solar panel on the cmbination trash bin/message board has been stolen. Interesting to see a Gamewell fire telegraph box here.
Brockton station
Apparently there was once a big depot and yard here in Brockton, 20 miles south of South Station, and after traffic dwindled, the depot was demolished and the central Brockton police station was built on top of the viaduct where the depot had previously stood. It's obvious from the design of the police station that it was built before passenger service was restored; it would likely be better for both the department and the MBTA if the cops were elsewhere.
Brockton station
Now on the west side of Commercial Street with my back to the station, looking at BAT's "BAT Centre" bus terminal, where most Brockton bus routes meet in a pulse system for transfers.
Brockton station
The BAT-owned garage next door has 266 spaces, less than half the daily boardings that Brockton commuter rail station recorded in 2018 — this is an actual city, and many of the passengers either walk or take the bus. (During the pandemic, BAT and the MBTA have partnered to offer an affordable fare on the train to reduce crowding on the one BAT bus, route 12, that runs to Boston.)
Brockton station
Another look at the bus station. While it was designed to copy the visual cues from extant railroad depots in Massachusetts, this is clearly, from the materials, a new structure — they didn't lift the old depot off the viaduct and plop it down across the street. (The old depot was demolished in the 1960s.)
Brockton station
The original retaining walls for the depot were left largely intact even after the depot was razed, and are in good condtion.
Brockton station
One set of stairs leading up to the train station from Centre St.
Brockton station
The granite steps are also in good condition. (I suspect that these have been replaced since the original depot was closed.)
Brockton station
South side of the police station and passenger circulation area next to the tracks
Brockton station
This time it's a long, straight high-level center platform.
Brockton station
Looking south along the formerly-four-track viaduct from the pedestrian grade crossing at the south end of the platform
Brockton station
The good thing about it having been originally a four-track viaduct was that there was plenty of room for a center-platform station.
Brockton station
Sure seems like there's an awful lot of parking in downtown Brockton....
Brockton station
Looing north along the (wide!) platform from the end of the canopy
Brockton station
It's cleat where the other two trackways would have been in this view from the north end of the platform.
Brockton station
There's an apparently little-used siding north of the station that runs for about 5000 feet; it ends before the Ashland St. overpass, where the third track has been lifted, but the line remains double-tracked through the next station, Montello. (At Astland St., the line also transitions from viaduct to surface level, although still grade-separated.