Bridge Construction delays Restoring Double Track - South Coast Rail's East Taunton Bottleneck

In this video we’re going to take a look at current operations at the bottleneck just outside of the East Taunton MBTA Station. MBTA South Coast Rail service to Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts opened up on March 24, 2025 but before a highway bridge project was completed….infact that project is still ongoing. This bridge replacement project is needed to replace the old Route 24 highway bridges over the commuter rail tracks to allow double tracking as the original bridge was built for single track. After construction started a well known contractor shut down because of their involvement with the RIDOT Washington Bridge closure in nearby Rhode Island. When they closed down they walked away from the Route 24 project and it sat untouched for months. Even though the work was taken over by another contractor eventually there were major delays and it was not completed in time for the commuter rail opening. Now MBTA trains have to run on single track under the structure until it is completed. This causes delays. For those that don’t know the MBTA has a more significant bottleneck issue north of Braintree where three commuter rail lines funnel up to Boston on single track. With three lines already running trains on the congested single track separate trains running to both South Coast cities could not run. New Bedford and Fall River are on the same line but or on two different branches because the line splits at Myricks Junction. The solution was to have cross-platform transfers at East Taunton. Trains that depart Boston make a stop at East Taunton where another train is waiting to take passengers to the other city not served by the train directly. Trains alternate between cities meaning the first train from Boston may go to New Bedford and the next to Fall River. With alternating trains the separate shuttle runs complete the other stretch of the route. So a Boston to New Bedford train will meet a East Taunton to Fall River shuttle and vice versa. Of course this is also the same operation from the South Coast up to Boston. So with all these trains running with timed meets in East Taunton it means there’s usually at least two trains departing East Taunton around the same time. Now there’s actually usually three trainsets and technically four trains as seen in the timetable so this can get confusing. Looking at this schedule you see a 3:34PM arrival of a shuttle from Fall River at East Taunton. The train number is 1984. It is meeting inbound train 2034 to Boston here at 3:45PM but first a New Bedford bound outbound from Boston arrives at 3:36PM. That train number is 2021. Passengers from the Fall River shuttle are transferring to the inbound but passengers from outbound are also transferring. They will board the shuttle that will turn and depart bound for Fall River at 3:47PM. At 3:45PM the train from New Bedford to Boston arrives and picks up the passengers who just came up from Fall River. As that train leaves the shuttle, now turned as 1971, departs for Fall River with the last outbound’s passengers. This whole process can get confusing but conductors are there to direct people onto the correct trains. Of course this is all technically temporary if South Coast Rail Phase 2 happens but we really need some improvements here in the meantime. The whole shuttle concept will continue to operate until the second phase is built but more trackwork in this area will help with operational flexibility and fight delays. Double track would be nice for this operation but the bridge bottleneck will still be an issue until construction is over. Once the bridge is complete two tracks will run from East Taunton Station to Pierce which is just south of Myricks. That is about 4 miles of double track that is currently interrupted about 3 quarters of a mile in. Note the current track arrangement here. The crossovers are built and a stub track leads to the bridge where the gap in the double track is. Once the bridge is replaced crews can go in and install that small missing piece that has definitely caused a few delays. Perhaps we’ll see some schedule changes and perhaps less dwell time in the stations since the shuttle doesn’t have to wait for their connecting train to clear up going in the same direction. I guess time will tell but we’ll see what this current operation actually looks like today. If trains stay on schedule the bottleneck isn’t terrible but it definitely is an issue when even just one train experiences a delay as shuttles are supposed to wait for the connecting train. Now throw in another train going in the other direction and maybe even a freight. We’ll actually see that operation here but without any major delays of course. Operations segment filmed 12/2025 Facebook:   / mslrailmedia   Comments? Questions? Just leave a note in the comment section and I'll get back to you. ©2026 South Coast Rail Videos