By Jim Kinney | jkinney@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD — Efforts to develop west-east passenger rail received a $3.5 million boost Monday.
The money will be used to prepare the state Department of Transportation’s Boston-Albany Corridor Service Development Plan, the route’s next step that would unlock further funding for a project that could cost into the billions.
The goal remains to provide two-hour rail service from Springfield to Boston.
But the first train probably won’t roll until 2029 at the earliest, accommodating a two-year accelerated design period and two or three years of construction.
Amtrak would, at first, extend two trains a day from Hartford to Springfield, and then to Worcester and Boston, eventually expanding to the west as far as Albany, New York.
“We are full steam ahead on building west-east rail, and this latest federal funding win brings us one step closer to delivering this for Massachusetts,” said Gov. Maura Healey in a statement.
West-east rail has benefited from more than $200 million in funding so far.
Monday’s announcement follows $108 million in Federal Railroad Administration funding that Massachusetts secured in 2023 for track work along 53 miles of rail between Springfield and Worcester. That work is now in the design phase.
Massachusetts also won $37 million in 2024 for the Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration Project at and around Springfield Union Station.
The Trump administration has signaled a shift in transportation priorities away from passenger rail, however. On the flip side, Trump’s most recent budget did not cut funding for Amtrak.
“But it changes hour to hour,” U.S. Rep Richard E. Neal said at a recent event when asked about west-east rail. “So it could become a priority by the end of the working day, but you never know.”
He emphasized that the track improvements are happening, characterizing the project as not “if” but “when.”
MassDOT has identified a location for and has begun design of a new Palmer Station. Neal said CSX and the state are eliminating the grade crossing in West Springfield and making track improvements in Pittsfield.
Neal, a longtime rail booster who shepherded the rehabilitation of Springfield’s Union Station, speaks often with Healey and others on the project. That includes Harvard University President Alan Garber, as the school owns the Allston rail yard, which the new trains would need.
All of this is working toward one common goal, Neal said: the realized outcome of west-east rail.
Across the northern edge of Massachusetts, proponents also are backing Northern Tier Rail, passenger rail service from the Boston area west through Greenfield to the Berkshires.
State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, said last week that she hopes to get that route moving through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Corridor ID Program, a federal rail planning and development program.
Meanwhile, Amtrak has found success serving Western Massachusetts.
Amtrak’s New Haven-Springfield shuttle trains carried 577,133 riders in its most recent fiscal year, a 30.6% increase from the 441,943 it carried in fiscal 2023.
Amtrak’s Vermonter also passes north and south though the Pioneer Valley, stopping in Springfield on its way to Vermont or Washington, D.C. It experienced a ridership increase of 12.2% from 97,259 in fiscal 2023 to 109,136 in fiscal 2024.
