Downtown Crossing to Get Fix This Week

The angled railroad crossing in downtown Hamilton has caused at least two bicycle crashes this summer. It will now be repaired.

The railroad crossing in downtown Hamilton will be repaired this week, starting Wednesday, to eliminate the danger to bicyclists. The angled crossing has caused at least two bicycle cashes in recent weeks, including one last weekend where a Beverly woman was flipped over her handlebars when her bicycle tire got caught in a gap between a ail and the road pavement. The work will begin on Wednesday morning, Sept. 19, Hamilton Police Lt. Scott Janes said in a written news release. The work will again continue on Friday, Sept. 21. The work hours each day will be 12 a.m. through 12 p.m. A variable message board has also been put up at the crossing to alert drivers to the upcoming construction. One lane on Bay Road (Route 1A) will be closed …

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You Ask...Patch Answers

Why Have We Been Hearing So Many Train Horns?

The latest "You Ask...Patch Answers" column explains why you may have been hearing so many train horns in recent weeks.

A dramatic increase in the amount of train horn blasts that have been heard in recent weeks - specifically in Wenham - along the MBTA tracks is because of an ongoing project to replace railroad ties. A spokesman for Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., which runs the commuter railroad system for the T, said the project to replace ties is part of infrastructure improvements to the commuter rail system. It is not affecting the service schedule to and from Hamilton-Wenham station. The work will continue until the end of July, according to Andrea Wheeler, the spokesman. The work will not extend north of Wenham and this week was occurring as far south as Salem. “The train horns have been blowing with greater frequency for the safety of any …

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T Spending $3 Million on Rail-Contract Search

The MBTA is looking far and wide for a company to run its commuter rail service.

Before the T shells out billions on a new long-term, commuter rail-service contract, it’s first spending nearly $3 million on an international search to attract the best applicants, according to the Boston Herald. The T is looking for a company to run its commuter-rail-service operations over the next five to possibly 30 years, as its current, roughly $250 million-per-year contract with the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. (MBCR) expires June 2013. An average of 384 riders board commuter rail at Hamilton-Wenham station each weekday and for the past decade riders has ranged from 266 to 496 daily riders from Hamilton-Wenham, according to the T. MBCR plans to bid aggressively for the new deal, according to the Huffington Post. The …

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Component Causing Stuck Train Gates Has Been Replaced

Drivers were waved through railroad crossings while the gates were down last weekend because of

A component along the railroad tracks that was “acting up” during Christmas weekend has been replaced and the problem is now resolved, according Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co. Police in both Hamilton and Wenham had to stand by at the Bay Road crossing in Hamilton and Larch Row in Wenham last weekend because the railroad gates were getting stuck down, even though a train was not coming. “The problem has been fixed and we don't anticipate the replacement component causing any of the same issues,” said Andrea Wheeler, a spokesman for MBCR, which runs the commuter rail system. Railroad gates sometimes come down inexplicably in the winter because of road salt, but the only time local roads have been salted recently was on Monday, after…

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