Western Massachusetts Rail Improvements To Set Stage For More Amtrak Service to Albany
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration announced that two track improvement projects in the Pittsfield area will go under construction in the coming months to improve operations for the seasonal Berkshire Flyer service and set the stage for a planned Boston-Albany route.
The Pittsfield track capacity project will go under construction this fall, and is expected to be complete in 2028, MassDOT officials told StreetsblogMASS.
The project will build a new 2.6-mile passing track in Richmond, the small town just southwest of Pittsfield.
The project will also build a new track junction and expand the length of an existing siding track in the Pittsfield Yard, located on the east side of Pittsfield.
The two projects are designed to reduce conflicts between Amtrak trains and freight traffic. CSX, a privately-owned freight railroad corporation, owns the railway between Worcester and Albany.
Amtrak to the Berkshires
MassDOT is planning a considerable increase in passenger rail traffic through Pittsfield as part of its “Compass Rail” initiative, and these track improvements will enable CSX and Amtrak to run more trains through the Berkshires.
Pittsfield currently gets two Amtrak departures per day from the Lake Shore Limited, which operates one daily trip toward Chicago and one to Boston.
Since 2022, Pittsfield has also had a seasonal, weekend-only train to New York City from the Amtrak Berkshire Flyer route, which operates one trip in each direction on Fridays and Sundays between June and early September.
The Berkshire Flyer initially began as a two-year pilot for 2022 and 2023 in a partnership between Amtrak, MassDOT and state DOT. But those agencies have extended the pilot several times since then, and even added an additional round trip for the 2026 season.
In a press release, MassDOT said that the track improvements being built now would be “a major step toward permanent seasonal Berkshire Flyer service.”
MassDOT is also planning to run more Amtrak trains through Pittsfield via a new Boston-Albany route.
The agency hosted a public meeting earlier this week to kick off its “service development plan” for the proposed service, which could introduce two new daily round-trip Amtrak trains between Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield and Albany sometime in the 2030s.
The service development plan, which is scheduled to be finished by 2028, will analyze alternatives, assess additional infrastructure needs and establish agreements for financing the new route.
