Decisions, decisions. (WMP&I)

PALMER—Nearly a year ago, it was wine and roses as the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) formally began studying restoration of train service here. Hopes have been growing ever since East-West rail transitioned from Western Mass political shibboleth to inevitability. However, a new obstacle has appeared on the tracks: discord around where Palmer’s station should go.

Toward the end of a Monday public hearing at the gleaming Palmer Public Library, dissent about the potential choices reached full boil. One attendee, Blake Lamothe, insisted on addressing the audience. The clash led Palmer Town Manager Brad Brothers to end the meeting formally. Still, nobody moved as Lamothe read out an open letter that, to put it mildly, panned the process.

The state has only funded design so far. That said, the emphasis on practicalities augurs well for funding construction.

“I’m excited to say the need for imagination is coming to a close,” said Natasha Velickovic of VHB, the state’s design consultant.

Officials were not only imagining a station. State and town officials were bracing for vocal objections.

By Monday, most knew only one downtown site remained in contention and it was not the historic depot. The meeting structure relegated Q&A to stations in the library community room where additional information was available. Feedback was to be in writing. Nonetheless, the objectors would be heard.

There were critiques and jeers sprinkled throughout the meeting. These erupted into louder complaints toward the end. Lamothe, owner of the Steaming Tender restaurant operating in the former Union Station here, had a letter aloud he would eventually read aloud.

But what might be (again)… (via Wikipedia)

Broadly speaking, the historic depot is the first choice in Palmer. What cleaves the town is how much to prioritize that site—or any in the immediate downtown area—when close enough could suffice.

Ben Hood, a founder of Citizens for a Palmer Rail Stop, acknowledged disappointment that the original depot did not make the cut for technical reasons and nearby sites could similarly face the axe.

“Nonetheless we still want the rail stop to be as close to the downtown business district as possible,” Hood said in an email. “My priorities for a site remain its economic development potential, while also enabling a future north-south rail connection to UMass and UConn.”

Hood held out hope for the last downtown site. However, he would consider the two options just east of Palmer’s core acceptable, too.

“I would hate seeing the station moved to any of the three sites more distant from the downtown,” he added.

Station backers tout Palmer with its numerous rail lines, as the Town of Seven Railroads. Building a station in this town of 12,000 involves more than seven stakeholders. CSX owns the ex-Boston & Albany tracks that Amtrak uses to reach Springfield from points east. Two freight railroads still cross CSX.

Then there is Palmer itself—styled a town, but legally a city—and the state, to say nothing of residents, businesses and surrounding communities.

Andy Koziol, MassDOT’s director for “West-East rail,” and Velickovic explained how the choices had been whittled down from 11 sites to six. Koziol noted that MassDOT, whose remit includes freight rail, had to take the line’s owner, CSX, into account. Velicikovic echoed, this point when discussing the sites at the edges of town, in and near downtown and in Wilbraham—which is not Palmer.

“We wanted to make sure whatever new geometry we were proposing for a new station needed to fit within those railroad right-of-way limits,” Velickovic said.

“There are a number of minimum standards that need to be provided when you are siting new stations,” she added.

Koziol addresses a rambunctious public meeting in Palmer while Velickovic looks on. (WMP&I)

Amtrak is all but certain to provide expanded passenger service between Boston and Springfield, which means Amtrak would also provide service to Palmer. Right now, it appears agnostic about the location.

“Conversations are ongoing with MassDOT,” an Amtrak spokesperson said before Monday’s meeting.

Still, MassDOT and its consultant are using Amtrak’s guidelines as a starting point for Palmer’s station. Based on a projected annual ridership of 20,000 or less, Palmer would fall into Amtrak’s Category 4. The accompanying slide from Velickovic’s presentation suggested this number came about by projecting a ridership of students, commuters, and occasional travelers.

Category 4 Amtrak stations include a platform, lighting, a canopy or small shelter and possibly a self-service kiosk. The station would have no staff and no restrooms. Velickovic suggested that this was only a baseline for design and not necessarily a limit.

Station design elements are less fraught than engineering and track geometry. Among such concerns was placing the station on a siding some 24 feet away from mainline freight tracks. The total length of the siding needed to be 1800 feet, including 800 feet of straight track for the platform. That is about the length of most Amtrak consists.

The other engineering challenge is level boarding for accessibility and boarding efficiency. However, high-level platforms, which are even with the railcar floor, can be incompatible with freight cars.

Together, these factors appeared to doom the historic Palmer depot.

“I do want to rip the Band-Aid off and just talk a little bit about one of the sites in particular,” she said of the depot.

To fit the platform and siding, Velickovic said, MassDOT would need to rebuild the South Main Street overpass. It would also need to acquire additional properties. She mentioned that this design would assume little-to-no reconfiguration of CSX’s tracks and switches, one of which lies just west of where she said a platform at the depot would go.

While narrowing the list, Velickovic said MassDOT looked at engineering options (and cost), onward mobility, environmental impact, economic development and implementation challenges.

Green Letters Mark the Six Potential Spots. (via MassDOT/palmertrain.com)

She faced heckles as she mentioned the location in Wilbraham. Despite its engineering virtues, Velickovic noted the obvious drawbacks of a Palmer station not in Palmer. The Wilbraham site also has topographical challenges.

The only surviving downtown site, at Palmer’s public works yard, did not fare better. Although parking would be downtown, it would require a serpentine ramp and walkway to the platform. Velickovic said the siding could not be built until it reached a similarly straight stretch of mainline track. Plus, the Quaboag River sometimes floods the DPW yard.

The last two sites, which were close to Warren,fnort received relatively short shrift. They were far from the north-south route and required pedestrian bridges.

The most attractive proposals, at least given MassDOT’s terms, were two locations near CSX’s Palmer yard. Parking and station facilities could be located on either side of the yard. Street access would be via either Park Street or South Main Street. The platform would be on the south side of the yard, commandeering a CSX yard track.

With few cost drivers, except maybe a pedestrian bridge, the only complication would be taking CSX’s track. The freight railroad has not ruled out the possibility of repurposing the yard track for a station.

“CSX is currently working with MassDOT to review the future location of a station that would optimize fluidity and work for both freight and passenger operations,” a railroad spokesperson said in a statement to WMP&I.

Slides on cost and the various criteria Vulickovic had mentioned earlier clearly privileged the railyard locations.

Nevertheless, objections began almost as soon as the presentation concluded.

Brothers, the town manager, rose to close the meeting and let the breakout session begin. Lamothe had also risen to speak and rejected Brothers’s attempt to close the meeting.

“I saw the sign, and it opened Palmer’s eyes…” (WMP&I)

“You guys are working for us okay,” responded Lamothe, who owns other downtown properties near the depot or is an officer of corporations that do.

Lamothe accused MassDOT of not engaging the community and all but rigging the process. He called endeavors like the Knowledge Corridor—service north and south of Springfield—a failure without any explanation. On a more technical—and more accurate—level, he blamed MassDOT for not reinstalling double tracking through Palmer.

The distillation of his complaint thought was that high-level platforms were unnecessary and low-level would do.

“I have emails from the Federal Railroad Administration indicating that low-level platforms work at the current historical site,” Lamothe said.

“The problem we have here is these people only want to see high-level platforms, which is pushing the train out of town and CSX doesn’t want this in the way,” he continued.

Lamothe suggested the new administration in Washington may need to involve itself. That might only do so much.

Because of its age, swaths of American railroads are not accessible. It is true that the only requirement for a new station would be compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which does not itself mean high-level platforms. In other words, a low-level platform could comply with the ADA.

Do state regs leave Palmer high and dry? (via Wikipedia)

However, that is not the whole story. Both the FRA and the United States Department of Transportation favor level boarding for new stations. Going back to at least 2005, the preference is high-level platforms. This became clearer in a 2022 regulation, which also indicated a preference for full-length accessibility. Though neither rule nor Amtrak itself completely foreclose low-level platforms in new stations, they clearly disfavor it. Sweeping these rules away are easier said than done.

More pertinently, state regulations require full-length platforms for new stations “where passenger services has not heretofore been provided or where no regularly scheduled passenger service has been provided for five or more years.”

Technically, this only covers commuter rail stations and not intercity stations. That distinction may not be practical given that of the roughly 140 mainline rail stations in the commonwealth, all but four host commuter rail, depending on whether Connecticut’s Hartford Line service to Springfield counts.

Normally a hulking bureaucracy like MassDOT deserves limited sympathy. Still, it rarely opens stations at busy freight locales like Palmer. Outside the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which exists semi-autonomously from MassDOT, the state has not built an entirely new station on a freight route like CSX’s since Pittsfield station’s rebuilding in 2004.

Even as Massachusetts re-embraces rail, the constituency of roads dominates both policy and funding. Moreover, outside of rails it owns, the commonwealth has little leverage over freight railroads. Amtrak has a bigger bat to swing, but its priorities are not identical to MassDOT’s.

In other words, with limited resources and leverage, the perfect may be the enemy of the good in Palmer. Indeed, a cost-effective choice may not be in the ideal location, but it would reduce the risk of future sunk costs. With sufficient future-proofing, Palmer could arrive at its ideal station location further down the line, if well after passenger service returns to the Town of Seven Railroads.