MassDOT Wins More Federal Funds to Build Springfield Amtrak Station Expansion Project
Massachusetts has secured another $130 million in federal funding to build a major expansion in track infrastructure around Springfield Union Station.
On Friday afternoon, Governor Maura Healey, Congressman Richard Neal, and various other officials visited Springfield Union Station to celebrate the grant award, which will finance a key component in the state’s plans to run more Amtrak service through western Massachusetts.
The grant will pay for the construction of the planned Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration Project (see schematic diagram above).
Springfield is slated to be the hub of the state’s proposed “Compass Rail” system, which calls for increased passenger rail service along a west-east axis from Albany to Boston, and a north-south axis from Vermont to New Haven.
The station is also part of the state’s primary east-west freight railroad route.
To accommodate more train traffic through the area, Springfield’s Union Station will need to re-activate abandoned passenger boarding platforms, upgrade its train signals, and add new switches, crossovers, and siding tracks.
The newly-announced funding is coming from the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant program.
MassDOT had previously received a $36.8 million FRA grant in 2024 to complete its final designs for the Springfield station expansion, but until today, no funding had been budgeted for construction.
A busier Springfield hub
Springfield Union Station currently sees more than a dozen passenger trains on a typical day. Most of those trains don’t go to Boston, but to Hartford and New Haven via the Amtrak Valley Flyer and the CTRail Hartford Line.
The city also gets two daily trains to Washington D.C. on the Amtrak Northeast Regional, one daily departure in each direction for the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited, which runs between Boston and Chicago, and one daily departure in each direction on the Amtrak Vermonter, which connects northern Vermont and New York City.
Under MassDOT’s “Compass Rail” plans, Springfield would get considerably more Amtrak service, with two new routes that would connect the city to Worcester and Boston.
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