The renovated tracks have not carried passenger trains since the 1980s, but that will change at the end of the year, when Amtrak plans to reroute its daily Washington-to-New York-to-Vermont train onto them, shaving about 25 minutes off its schedule. New stations will also eventually open in Holyoke, Northampton, and Greenfield.
By itself, those are small steps that hardly would have justified the large expenditure. Only about 230 passengers a day ride the Vermont train. Even if the faster trip and new stations attract more passengers, one round trip a day won't provide major economic impacts. This reflects a problem that has vexed the Obama administration's high-speed rail program. Dividing up the $8 billion into many smaller projects, instead of focusing on the most obvious targets like the Northeast Corridor, has yielded what look like very marginal gains, and nothing like the Japanese-style bullet trains that the grandiose term "high-speed rail" invoked.
But the investments can still pay off if states do what Massachusetts has now done: use the federal funding as a first step. On Wednesday, the Patrick administration announced it would purchase the newly renovated line. State ownership will preserve the tracks and open the way for expanded passenger use. For instance, MassDOT is planning to buy smaller, cheaper trains for use on the T commuter rail system; a few of them could be lent to western Massachusetts to see if more frequent service there would be viable. Connecticut is already planning to run commuter trains from New Haven to Springfield beginning in 2016; Massachusetts could enter a partnership with Connecticut (like the one it already has with Rhode Island) to extend some of those trips further north. More connections to Boston would provide an additional boost.
The high-speed rail program has come under criticism for underdelivering, and a lot of that criticism is justified. But if the next governor, along with his or her counterparts in Connecticut and Vermont, can leverage the state's $70 million grant into a new regional rail service connecting the Connecticut River Valley, it'll look like a far-sighted bargain.