MassDOT Rail: Springfield Hub (East-West, NNERI, Berkshires, CT-Valley-VT-Quebec)

The EGE said:
Central Corridor was a good idea proposed too early. There are a number of corridors that would be useful to have regional rail on - moderate-speeds, cheaply operated, ~10 mile stop spacing, service every hour or two, intended for a mix of trips rather than commute-focused. New London-Brattleboro, New London-Worcester, Providence-Hyannis, parts of the Housatonic, etc. Some similar services like the outer LIRR branches, SLE, and Atlantic City Line already exist (but need improvements). Yes, some of these can be served with buses, but those typically have few stops

But in order for those to work, you need a framework of robust intercity services for those to connect to. We're talking half-hourly Northeast Regionals on the NEC, hourly Inland Route trains, and high frequency on the denser local corridors (Worcester Line, Providence Line, etc). Service on lighter corridors won't work if it's only useful for travel within that corridor - it works when it provides a link to everywhere else on the network. New London and Palmer and Brattleboro aren't big endpoints, but as gateways to the entire NEC and the three biggest cities in Massachusetts?
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Absolutely, wholeheartedly agreed.

Investments should be in:
  1. Northeast Corridor
    • bringing it up to international high-speed rail standards, which would drive demand for other connecting services in New England.
  2. Inland Route
    • with frequent, layered, high-speed service, ideally including a one-seat ride to Toronto and a Boston <> NYC service.
  3. New Haven - Springfield Line & Connecticut River Line & New England Central Railroad north of Northfield
    • with relatively frequent service and ideally a one-seat ride to Montreal.
  4. North-South Rail Link
    • with through-service connecting Portland and Providence, Springfield, and Hartford.
At that point, you have good service providing competitive, market-appropriate, one-seat rides between:
  • Boston <> Providence <> Norwich/New London <> New Haven <> Bridgeport/Stamford <> NYC <> Philadelphia <> Baltimore <> DC
  • Boston <> Worcester <> Springfield <> Chicago/Toronto
  • Montreal <> Springfield <> Hartford <> New Haven <> Bridgeport/Stamford <> NYC <> Philadelphia <> DC
  • Portland <> Boston <> Providence
  • Portland <> Boston <> Springfield <> Hartford
  • Boston <> Worcester <> Springfield <> New Haven <> Bridgeport/Stamford <> NYC
Once that's in place, it makes much more sense to improve some of the more secondary connecting corridors. For example, I'd love to see a one-seat ride between Boston and Montreal, or heck even Providence and Montreal via Boston, but that doesn't make sense without the above network established with appropriately good service. I feel similarly about a one-seat ride between Providence and Worcester, Hartford, and/or Springfield, or the present topic of Norwich/New London connecting with Hartford and/or Springfield.
 
It may be worth creating a separate thread focused on the Central Corridor that can sweep up @The EGE and @bigeman312's points in the posts above. (Or alternatively, to cross-post them and continue the discussion in the Regional New England Rail thread, where @Riverside kicked off some good discussion on the topic with this post about five years ago.)

One angle that's probably fair to keep in this thread is what Palmer should realistically expect to get from all this outreach. They apparently got Brattleboro to express support the other day, so they're definitely making themselves heard, but I still don't see why this Central Corridor angle would convince MassDOT to change its mind about where to put the Palmer station. The Palmer people aren't speaking directly to the core issue, i.e. whether they can propose any solutions for the problems MassDOT identified with trying to put platforms that close to the diamond and other rail yard switches, and they haven't really explained why it would be such a problem for Palmer to have a separate Central Corridor station when there's going to be at least a separate platform regardless. They're asking a lot of players to forego their own preferred design standards to suit a rail proposal that likely wouldn't be anyone's priority for decades to come.

Is there any risk of the whole Compass Rail initiative getting held up if this dispute doesn't get resolved, or would they just defer the Palmer station to a standalone infill project at some point in the future?
 
Given the expected time frame for any passenger rail on the Central Corridor (aka not anytime soon), what's stopping us from just building something at Palmer first so that East-West rail can run normally, and revisiting the question later, potentially moving/rebuilding Palmer station if necessary?

Commuter rail stations can and do get moved or rebuilt. Chelsea, Lynn, the Newton stations, you name it.

Granted, none of them involve rebuilding a modern, ADA-accessible station (and accessibility is the reason for many of these rebuilds in the first place), but it's still not impossible. And I don't see this as a situation where "correcting yesterday's planning mistakes" would cost significantly more, even if it can be called a mistake in the future to begin with.

riptide said:
Is there any risk of the whole Compass Rail initiative getting held up if this dispute doesn't get resolved, or would they just defer the Palmer station to a standalone infill project at some point in the future?
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I fear that deferring Palmer station to the future would just create a repeat of Route 16 for GLX, Battleship Cove for SCR, etc. While they're not perfect comparisons, neither are gaining any momentum today now that the main project has been completed.
 
The Central Corridor is so far off from being anyone's planning priority that the not-yet-built B&A Palmer station will be more than 2 decades old by the time they need to address the disconnect. I mean, that's not much different a timeframe from Middleborough/Lakeville's opening-to-orphaning, and we survived that controversy. They should of course be triaging what the alternatives are when a union station at the old location isn't physically feasible, but that's almost the least of their self-justification worries right now.

I like that the CC advocates are being plucky here, but their service plan is awfully half-baked until it has way better/denser services to connect to at the NEC, B&A, and (maybe especially, since the universe of current proposals only nets +2 more RT's) the Conn River ends. It's simply not going to work as a corridor until you get near-hourlies at each connecting node, and we're just not close to there. If they want to give this initiative oxygen for the 2 decades it's going to take to get there, they should be putting much more emphasis on interim solutions like connecting buses that'll make the rail corridor more viable as a future prospect. Route 32 is the region's largest north-south state highway that doesn't have a co-mingled north-south expressway within 20 miles of it. There's definitely a transit exploit there if they cared to pursue it. But that would mean yielding just a bit on the rail-now bent of the current study, and they don't seem to be willing to do that.
 
Knowing Amanda Kennedy well, I want to translate her statement in the Day article I shared as: "Central Corridor Rail makes no sense we're not advocating for this at all" Even the SLE extensions to Norwich and Westerly aren't endorsed by SECCOG, which was made very clear to me when I tried to connect some advocates of the Westerly extension (ITT) to SECCOG. We can debate chicken and egg of rail service and TOD, but the decision makers involved are very firmly in the camp of the chicken (TOD) needing to come before the egg.
 
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When Palmer station eventually opens, is it anticipated to become a stop on the Lake Shore Limited? Or will it only be a stop for the Inland Route and the future Boston <-> Albany service?
 
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