SPRINGFIELD — Commuter trains could link Boston and Springfield in as little as 90 minutes and as often as 10 or 12 times a day, MassDOT planners said during a meeting Tuesday with rail boosters and elected officials.
MassDOT didn’t include cost estimates in its preliminary report. A final feasibility study won’t be available until sometime in the first quarter of 2020.
But for longtime rail booster state Sen. Eric P. Lesser, D-Longmeadow, the report means progress.
“It’s a feasible project,” Lesser said. “Even to be this far along, a year ago , it would have been unimaginable.”
Faster and more frequent trains are preferable, Lesser said.
But to get to higher speeds, the state would have to build new tracks separate from existing rights of way, lawmakers were told.
Richard Sullivan, the president and CEO of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts said that anything connecting Western Massachusetts to markets either in Boston or New York City, means growth and prosperity.
“But being a realist, I know that eventually this is going to take a commitment of significant dollars,” Sullivan said prior the meeting.
Lesser said the balance the state must find is between cost of construction and speed of service and the time that construction would cost.
And there are physical restrictions, MassDOT said in a presentation: the existing rail line passes through rock ledges and other hard-to-build on land forms. It has CSX freight traffic on it now and, especially in the East, existing passenger traffic.
Also, Boston’s South Station is limited as far as how many trains it can accept.
Adding more stops might make the rail service more convenient, but would make it slower like an old-fashioned milk run.
The only existing east-west train traffic through Springfield is Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited: One train east a day and one daily train west from Boston to Chicago.
Amtrak announced Tuesday that the Lake Shore Limited has returned to scheduled operations between Boston South Station and Albany two weeks ahead of schedule following infrastructure improvements by host railroad CSX.
The Lake Shore Limited has a maximum speed of just 80 mph — just 60 mph west of Worcester — and can take as long as two hours and thirty minutes to reach Boston from Springfield, according to the MassDOT report.
Amtrak said customers can once again expect a one-seat ride as far west as Chicago as tickets are now available for customers between both cities, as well as the following interim stations across Massachusetts: Back Bay, Framingham, Worcester, Springfield and Pittsfield. Customers can remained updated with real-time info via Amtrak.com/delayalerts and @AmtrakAlerts on Twitter.
Expanded north and south passenger service, sponsored by the state, serving Springfield to Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield begins in August or early September.
The state of Connecticut began expanded service from Springfield to Hartford and New Haven in June , service that can go as fast as 80 mph, or 81 minutes to New Haven.
The slowest MassDOT alternative involves a rail shuttle from Worcester and the MBTA and a bus from Springfield to Westfield, Blandford and Pittsfield. But that’s a three-hour trip from Springfield and more than four hours from Pittsfield.