AMTRAK NEC: Springfield Shuttle/Regional/Valley Flyer/Inland Routing

Not a bad start to the new service! One of the biggest advantages is that if you live north of Springfield and work in New Haven and Fairfield Counties, you will be able to commute. It all depends when your job starts and finishes. I can definitely see these new trains doing well with people traveling to NYC on business. Some people might even make a long daytrip to the city. Amtrak will want to do what it can to add cars to those trains as they will probably be packed.

Extending service to North Adams is a big proposition IMO. Greenfield is easy because the route is under MBTA control. They built it for fast speed, and they will control maintaining it.

The route to North Adams is run by Pan Am Southern, has significant single tracking, and even after NS rebuilt it for them, I remember reading the speeds are back down into the 20MPH zone. I remember riding the Amtrak special and how slow it was, which was cool for a scenic train special run, but I can't say I'd ride a train frequently that couldn't do more than 20 or 30mph.

Now MBTA could dump money into fixing the line, but I feel like the money to restore that line to at least 50MPH (I think the train needs to be comparable to a bus or car speed at least) would be better spent on getting double track from SPG to BOS so MA could connect the two cities.

gprimr1 wrote:Extending service to North Adams is a big proposition IMO. Greenfield is easy because the route is under MBTA control. They built it for fast speed, and they will control maintaining it.

The route to North Adams is run by Pan Am Southern, has significant single tracking, and even after NS rebuilt it for them, I remember reading the speeds are back down into the 20MPH zone. I remember riding the Amtrak special and how slow it was, which was cool for a scenic train special run, but I can't say I'd ride a train frequently that couldn't do more than 20 or 30mph.

Now MBTA could dump money into fixing the line, but I feel like the money to restore that line to at least 50MPH (I think the train needs to be comparable to a bus or car speed at least) would be better spent on getting double track from SPG to BOS so MA could connect the two cities.

I flat-out don't see this happening ever. There's basically nobody to serve in the Deerfield River valley; the largest town between Greenfield and the Hoosac Tunnel is Shelburne Falls, pop. 1,700. If Western Mass ever gets more than 1x/day again it's going to be via the B&A or even the Housatonic RR, not the B&M.

Ridgefielder wrote:I flat-out don't see this happening ever. There's basically nobody to serve [from Greenfield]

Yeah, while I'd amit it is "worth a study" I think you've outlined what the study will show.
(1) That the Berkshire-Taconics (everything west of the Connecticut River Valley) wants a "north-south" connection to NYC
(2) That the mountains are mostly empty
(3) The best way to get by rail to population & vacation hubs (Pittsfield & the Barringtons) is an Empire Service or Housy kind of routing
(4) Albany is a better connection point than Greenfield

I have to agree. I can't see a North Adams happening in either direction.

I mean MAYBE if they extend further trains from Albany and it's a weekend train with connections to Mass MOCA (which I highly recommend checking out btw!)

My guess, we'll see the following evolution over the next 2 decades:

1) NYP-ALB-Pittsfield - The Berkshire Flyer. This I give a 90%+ chance of happening as a seasonal train and eventually becoming a year-round weekend train.
2) Eventually a separate ALB-SPR route with either a transfer to a SPR-BOS train or run through to Boston. Further in the future.
3) We might even see a Inland route from New Haven that heads towards Albany. The goal isn't the end points, but the midpoints and those just happen to be decent end points for servicing, etc.
4) Very unlikely but I wouldn't rule out in 20-30 years, something up the Housatonic to Pittsfield.
5) Bus routes (from locations like North Adams) as feeders to Springfield, Pittsfield, etc.

To make any of this possible is going to require additional hardware and making sure schedules integrate such that transfers are easy to do.
The integration is going to be key.

Ridgefielder wrote:If Western Mass ever gets more than 1x/day again it's going to be via the B&A or even the Housatonic RR, not the B&M.

Call me crazy but I've seen this end of Pan Am come up in discussions before. In general it is considered a better option from an administrative standpoint because the railroad is cooperative. Not commenting on North Adams specifically but more Pan Am v. CSX in Western MA.

That's not to say that it is necessarily a good place to terminate trains but merely that the route might have certain advantages for a wide variety of possibilities.

Greg Moore wrote:My guess, we'll see the following evolution over the next 2 decades:

I think extension of the Vermonter to Montreal should be #1. That has a lot of implications for Amtrak in Springfield, Worcester and Boston.

Seriously hope that Montrealer comes back, and eventually becomes a high-speed train. My family goes to Montréal every year, along with many others from the Boston area.

gokeefe wrote:

Ridgefielder wrote:If Western Mass ever gets more than 1x/day again it's going to be via the B&A or even the Housatonic RR, not the B&M.

Call me crazy but I've seen this end of Pan Am come up in discussions before. In general it is considered a better option from an administrative standpoint because the railroad is cooperative. Not commenting on North Adams specifically but more Pan Am v. CSX in Western MA.

That's not to say that it is necessarily a good place to terminate trains but merely that the route might have certain advantages for a wide variety of possibilities.

If you'g going to go all the way through the tunnel to North Adams, then you may as well go further, to Hoosick Jct., North Bennington and on up the Rutland. Reaching the colleges, populations centers and resorts on the west side of the Green Mountains make a lot more sense than a dead end in North Adams. No matter how nice Mass MoCa is.

Greg Moore wrote: 1) NYP-ALB-Pittsfield - The Berkshire Flyer. This I give a 90%+ chance of happening as a seasonal train and eventually becoming a year-round weekend train.

Never really thought about it, but some of the ski mountains could/should make ski train agreements like Mount Wachusett has with the MBTA.

Berkshire East would die and go to heaven if there were ski trains. They're a three minute shuttle away from the Freight Main.

never ceases to amaze me about American transit planning that there can be serious discussion about state supported rail service into thinly populated counties in corrugated landscapes, but crickets (with the exception of a dubious private venture) re direct service between the second and third most populous cities in New England.

For the past 40 years the state of mass has been desperately trying to devise various schemes to revitalize north adams which economically vaporized in the late 50s and 60s. At one point, they considered putting in a gambling casino on mount greylock. then there was the western gateway heritage park that they built. It is a railroad themed park that unfortunately not many people go to. Then mass moca happened with major funding that some people go to. Then they made the berkshire scenic thing happen.
So using the railroad as an economic development tool today is not much different than it was for developing the hoosac tunnel back in the 1860s.

If enough local political pressure is put on the state, things could happen in North Adams. But from Mass DOTS perspective at the present time they don't even want to think about Greenfield being a gateway to Boston much less having runs out to North Adams. Certainly making Greenfield to Boston happen first will be perquisite for thinking about anything west of Greenfield. But whether any of this happens will have a lot more to do with the degree of political arm twisting on the way than whether or not there's a perception of a sufficiently large enough population to support it.

dowlingm wrote:never ceases to amaze me about American transit planning that there can be serious discussion about state supported rail service into thinly populated counties in corrugated landscapes, but crickets (with the exception of a dubious private venture) re direct service between the second and third most populous cities in New England.

That's strictly a function of political boundaries and Amtrak's funding scheme which requires state level funding for short routes.

I would also note that the likely demand for such service has only recently reappeared with the modern trends in reurbanization.

And a function of which lines the state of MA could buy. Basically passenger service is going exactly where a public entity owns.