MA: Amtrak: Passenger traffic up nationwide, but some Springfield trains down 17% in ridership

 Amtrak reported 34.5 million customer trips last year, a 5.1% increase over the previous year and an all-time record.

But Amtrak’s north-south trains through Springfield Union Station saw a 17.7% decline in passenger traffic.

Amtrak’s New Haven-Springfield route recorded 577,240 passenger trips in fiscal 2024 and 474,990 in the 2025 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The route includes not only Springfield- Hartford-New Haven trains but also the Valley Flyer service from Springfield north to Holyoke, Northampton and Greenfield.

Jason Abrams, Amtrak senior public relations manager, said there are multiple factors that could affect ridership, including regional demand, service frequencies and more.

Some of those riders are choosing instead to take CTRail’s Hartford Line trains over the Springfield- New Haven route. CTRails’ passenger volume is running about 11% up from last year, according to the Connecticut Department of Transportation. CTRail records its passenger counts on a calendar-year-to-date basis.

Springfield Union Station welcomed about 4,000 CTRail passengers in October, said Nicole Sweeney, commercial property manager at the station. That’s up about 1,000 from numbers in September 2025 and October 2024.

“In the past, we’ve increased ridership with train-centric events,” she said.

The station hosted Track-or-Treat in October with kids taking a CTRail train ride to Hartford and also the Kids ON TRACK mini model railway show weekend in August.

“That’s a train full of 300 people every time we do it,” she said.

Thanksgiving week is always busy at Union Station.

Amtrak said ridership decreased 3.9% on its only east-west train through Springfield. The long-distance Lake Shore Limited had 382,881 passengers in 2025, down from 398,420 in 2024.

The train didn’t run through Springfield for a time this summer after a sinkhole on the tracks disrupted service near Albany. Passengers were ferried by bus.

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