Massachusetts state transportation officials will be in Palmer tonight to collect feedback on plans for a potential new passenger rail station in the Hampden County town.
Known by some as the “Town of Seven Railroads,” Palmer has a history steeped in all things locomotive.
Mill Villages cropped up in the area during the 19th century, as did a number of railroads, with trains going east, west, north and south.
The town never ended up hosting seven railroads at one time, but to this day, Palmer remains a major junction for freight train activity, though it hasn’t had a passenger rail stop in decades.
Anne Miller is co-founder of the group “Citizens for a Palmer Rail Stop,”
“The freight is kind of a mixed blessing, because we are on a very active freight location and the state has already invested heavily in those lines,” she told WAMC. “In recent years, since our advocacy began, [they have] invested significant money in the lines. The only thing is, because freight companies also took out some of the infrastructure from passenger rail ... now, it is a little bit awkward.”
Advocates want the return of west-east passenger rail, something the Massachusetts Department of Transportation has been studying.
A Palmer stop is included in MassDOT’s Compass Rail outline – a multi-phase plan that also seeks to connect Western Massachusetts cities with the Boston area.
MassDOT has identified an Inland Route involving Boston, Worcester, Springfield and stops in Connecticut. Construction is projected to start in 2027, with trains potentially rolling by 2029.
At the same time, MassDOT has allotted $4 million for “preliminary engineering” for a station in Palmer (found on pg. 201) – a development that locals like Miller and fellow co-founder, Ben Hood, have been gunning for for years.
“When we started advocating, one of the things that we found appalling was that Springfield - the fourth largest city in New England and the third largest city in Massachusetts - was not actually well-connected to the two largest cities in New England, Boston and Worcester,” he said. “We moved from Boston [and] we could not believe how backwards it was.”
Hood serves as the state appointee on the Palmer Redevelopment Authority and has been a part of the municipal stakeholders steering committee.
According to Hood and Miller’s group, officials will be unveiling a “’Level 2 Comparative Evaluation’ of potential sites for the future Palmer passenger rail platform.”
“There's one that's still downtown, the DPW, the Department of Public Works site,” he said. “There are a couple that are just a little east of downtown - within less than a mile from … sort of the heart of the downtown business district, and then there's another three sites that are much further out, one west and two east.”
At one point, Hood says 11 sites were on the table – narrowed down after MassDOT and consultants conducted a so-called “fatal flaw screening."
Large parts of the west-east rail project involve passenger rail service sharing track with freight trains. Company CSX owns the track west of Worcester. As a result, the site picked would need a significant amount of space. A platform would need to be built off of the freight line with its own track.
The passenger route must also not interfere with freight operations in the town, including the diamond junction, where CSX and the New England Central Railroad tracks cross.
Tonight's meeting will run from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Palmer Public Library. Hood and Miller anticipate MassDOT will share their presentation afterwards, as well as M-PACT TV, a public access channel serving Palmer and nearby Monson.
