1 week Ago
PITTSFIELD — The Berkshire Flyer is expected to return for a fourth summer of carrying Amtrak rail passengers from New York City to Pittsfield on Fridays, and carrying those visitors back on Sundays. But the train's projected Pittsfield arrival time of 9 p.m.
on Fridays — said to be a side effect of infrastructure work in New York City — concerns key supporters, as does the train's decline in ridership since its inaugural year. One of the line's key supporters believes replacing the rail link from the Albany-Rensselaer, N.Y.
, station to Pittsfield with bus service, either as an add-on or a replacement, would provide more efficient, reliable and timely service. The Flyer is a go for 2025, correspondence between a state transportation official and West Stockbridge rail advocate Eddie Sporn indicates, though the state Department of Transportation says that "The 2025 Berkshire Flyer season schedule is still being finalized pending final contract agreements." Neither Amtrak, which operates the service, nor CSX, which owns 40 miles of track between Albany and Pittsfield, returned calls seeking comment Friday.
The problem starts with the loss a train leaving Moynihan Train Hall in New York at 3:15 p.m., Sporn said.
That schedule change, due to the East River Tunnel rehabilitation project, led Amtrak to reduce its New York City-Rensselaer service by three round trips daily, according to the Empire State Passenger Association . According to Sporn, the next available northbound train that could take on Berkshire Flyer passengers would result in passengers arriving in Pittsfield at 9 p.m.
In his email exchange with MassDOT, Meredith Slesinger, the state's rail and transit administrator, did not contradict his characterization of the likely schedule. MassDOT declined comment when asked about scheduling specifics for the Flyer. The Berkshire Flyer, a much-touted pilot project that started to great fanfare the summer of 2022, has experienced difficulties amid the enthusiasm for re-establishing a rail link between New York and the Berkshires.
Those include travel delays on the line between Rensselaer and Pittsfield, and a lack of transit and rideshare options and amenities when visitors arrive at the Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center on Columbus Avenue. In his correspondence with Slesinger, Sporn asked for "thruway bus service" between Albany and Pittsfield as a way to rescue the Berkshire Flyer. "I cannot imagine a worse scenario than operating [Berkshire Flyer] service this summer with minimal ridership and poor reliability.
This outcome, I fear, awaits us if the schedule I’ve described above is accurate," Sporn said in his email to Slesinger. "Connecting bus service offers a more flexible, reliable, and less costly alternative until the rail infrastructure [between Albany and Pittsfield] is augmented." Slesinger replied that a direct New York-Pittsfield rail link, once lost, might never return.
"While we agree that the schedule isn’t what we wanted ...
we decided to go ahead with the service (after consultation with some [elected officials] and the Secretary) because of concerns that if we were to eliminate it for three years, there would little to zero chance of getting it back due to either budgetary factors on our side, Amtrak equipment availability, etc.," Slesinger wrote. "At the same time, we are looking at what kind of connecting bus service we may be able to put together to help benefit the region.
" State Rep. Leigh Davis, whose Berkshire 3rd District includes many of the county's summer cultural destinations, said a 9 p.m.
Friday arrival time is "setting us up to fail." "I worry that this is the death knell for the Berkshire Flyer," Davis said. "A 9 o'clock arrival is not something that's going to keep us competitive.
And when you factor in the historical data of trains being late, that's not something we feel is sustainable." In 2024, a season of 11 weeks from mid-June to early September, ridership was 777 passengers, according to Massachusetts Department of Transportation data provided by Sporn. That’s down from 1,261 in 2023, but that represents 20 weekends of service.
Its first year of 2023, a nine-week run between early July and early September, the Flyer carried 819 passengers from Penn Station to Pittsfield. But Sporn’s analysis of the data, limited to the nine common weekends of service over the three years and leaving out passengers traveling to Pittsfield on Sunday last year — the only year that shows a more significant decline. According to those figures, in the common nine weekends, round-trip ridership declined to 606 passengers in 2024, down from 743 in 2023 and 819 in 2022.
Amtrak's own data , organized by federal fiscal year, put the Berkshire Flyer's ridership at 826 in fiscal year 2024, down from 1,210 in fiscal year 2023. The problem? Sporn said word has gotten out that the service is slowed by freight traffic delays between Albany and Pittsfield. That limits access to rental cars or rideshare transit options — though data shows 16 passengers used a shuttle service from the Pittsfield station to their hotel or inn.
Amtrak’s New York City to Albany-Rensselaer trains are on time 90 percent of the time, Sporn said. The trouble is the 50 miles between Albany and Pittsfield, 40 of which are controlled by CSX. “And CSX, just like all the other major freight railroads, is supposed to give priority to passenger service but does not on a consistent basis,” Sporn said.
"It was supposed to be a pilot for a weekend tourist train. We felt from the very beginning that a train arriving at 7 at night, 7:20, 7:30, is too late. And 9 is way too late.
" According to MassDOT data shared by Sporn, eight of the 11 Friday arrivals were on time in 2024. The three that weren't on time were delayed by 15 minutes, by 1 hour, 38 minutes, and by 52 minutes, respectively. The longest of those delays resulted from the death of a pedestrian along the line in New York state.
The return trips were not nearly as efficient: more than half of those trains were late. The average delay for all trains was 37 minutes, according to the data. "For two years, I was at the station to meet every single train that came in and left on Sunday," Sporn said.
"I was there when the train came in 9-9:30 at night and saw the look on people's faces when they got off after a 6-hour trip from New York, and they were pissed. Some yelled at me like it was my fault." State Sen.
Paul Mark cautioned that letting the service lapse might make it difficult to bring it back. "We had been working with MassDOT to try to get the much earlier train that would have allowed for return service on Fridays," Mark said. "I think bus service is a good supplement, but anything that keeps the Berkshire Flyer up and running even if less convenient is worth taking.
" For Davis, who has made transportation infrastructure a priority in her first year on Beacon Hill, the limited availability of "last mile" transit options such as rideshare services, taxi cabs and rental cars discourages visitors who would rather leave their cars at home. "OK, we get to Pittsfield, then what?" Davis asked. "I wasn't convinced we have found the solution to that.
Pushing for the Flyer is good, but pushing for solutions to rural mobility transit issues is a bigger discussion we need to have.".
