A key component of plans to expand rail service through Springfield, Massachusetts is getting a big boost in funding.
A year after it supplied $108 million toward developing West-East rail in Massachusetts, the same federal grant is helping the next phase of one of the effort’s key projects.
The Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration project was already nearing the end of its preliminary engineering phase when officials say MassDOT was awarded $36.8 million by the Federal Railroad Administration.
It was one of many projects recently awarded via the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements, or CRISI program – the same one that previously awarded millions to support West-East Rail in late 2023.
“When designed, it'll have a proposed reconfiguration of the tracks for efficiency behind us, saving travel time in the east-west direction, but also the north-south direction,” said Andy Koziol, MassDOT’s West-East Rail director. “And also, we're looking at implementing high-level platforms to increase the accessibility at the station and designing new, modern layover facilities for the modern train sets that we're going to have running in the future Compass Rail lines.”
Koziol and others discussed the new funding on Union Station’s C platform Thursday.
According to the FRA, the reconfiguration project, receiving support for its design phase, includes improving “track, signal and other rail infrastructure along CSX, Amtrak and MassDOT track” – increasing capacity and improving efficiency to prepare Springfield Union Station for anticipated growth in regional rail service.
Part of that growth includes the future “Inland Route” transportation officials have been plugging – consisting of at least two daily Amtrak-operated roundtrips between Boston and New Haven, Connecticut, via Springfield.
MassDOT has previously indicated that with planning in place, construction work would start sometime in 2027, and feature key track work between Springfield and Worcester.
Under the banner of “Compass Rail,” the project is part of a broader effort that would see not only rail service expanded between Boston and Springfield, but extend to the Berkshires and Albany.
That’s in addition to bolstering north-south services between Greenfield, Massachusetts and New Haven.
Massachusetts Director of Federal Funds and Infrastructure Quentin Palfrey says it's a large-scale effort with more funding to be sought.
“This is a huge priority of the Healey-Driscoll administration, and what we're doing is we're fighting for every dollar,” he said. “A year ago, we brought in, with Congressman [Richard] Neal’s leadership and help, $108 million for the portion of this project that goes between Springfield and Worcester. Today, we're announcing another $37 million, but we're not done yet. We're going to keep fighting step-by-step to move this project forward so that we can make sure that everybody all across the state - this is a statewide initiative, it's west-east rail, but it's part of this broader compass rail program.”
As Koziol has previously told WAMC the program is made up of a series of smaller projects.
During Thursday’s announcement, he noted how officials received $500,000 in seed money to begin scoping out a service development plan for the newly-established Boston-Albany Passenger Rail Corridor.
That scoping work begins in early 2025, among other ongoing efforts.
“We have a planning and design effort going on right now for a future Palmer station, we are looking at a track capacity improvement program in the area of Pittsfield, and also, we have recently announced a grade crossing elimination project in West Springfield that's going to bring two at-grade crossings and separate the rail from the roadway with a roadway flyover, and it'll create efficiency on the rail side, but it's also going to be a great help on the roadway side for local traffic.”
