MA: Palmer rail station boosters want faster timetable, eye Fair Share ‘millionaires’ tax’ funds

Advocates for a future Palmer rail stop are afraid their “town of seven railroads” is getting left behind by the state’s west-east rail plans.

MassDOT plans to add new west-east Amtrak train service from Springfield to Boston in 2030, a later date that’s by itself frustrating for boosters. But the state’s Compass Rail plan doesn’t plan on opening a train station in Palmer until 2033.

Compass Rail is the state’s plan for improved passenger service both east-west and north-south through Western Massachusetts with Springfield Union Station at the center.

“For over a decade we have campaigned, with tremendous regional support, for Palmer as an Inland Route stop serving towns from northern Connecticut to Amherst,” wrote Ben Hood and Anne Miller of Citizens for a Palmer Rail Stop in a news release this week. “It is therefore disappointing to face an additional three-year delay of service.”

Tuesday, Miller and Hood amplified a call to use “millionaire’s tax” funding from the Fair Share Amendment, Palmer could serve as a park-and-ride hub as well as a station connected by bus to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The Fair Share money is being used to fund MBTA commuter rail projects.

“Which does not come out here,” he said. They are spending the Fair Share money only in the east,” Hood said.

Hood and Miller want advocates to call lawmakers from surrounding towns marshaling support.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation detailed its plans for expanded Boston- Worcester- Springfield rail service on several occasions in the last few weeks. MassDOT is planning work on tracks, switches and signals between Springfield and Worcester.

The Palmer stop depends on federal money, said Andy Koziol, director of west-east rail for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. But station projects can move on the timeline if funding is available.

West-east service as far as Albany, New York, isn’t scheduled until 2045. Berkshire County lawmakers have called for that project to get sped up as well.

In February 2025, MassDOT selected a now-vacant site on South Main Street in Palmer, just south of the railyard, for the station.

The state has set aside $3.5 million in its capital plan for preliminary engineering and design at the Palmer station.

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