by Allouette
Boston to Greenfield on the ex-B&M is 105 miles of twists and turns. The fastest B&M schedules ran 2:15, with most running 2:40 or more. The route via Springfield is 134 miles of relatively straight running. The Lake Shore gets a padded 2:30 for the 98 miles Boston to Springfield (NYC did 2:15 or more), and the Vermonter gets a slightly padded hour for the 36 miles (Amtrak TT shows 40 for some reason) from Springfield to Greenfield, about the same as B&M did with 55MPH MAS on 11 of the 36 miles, 40MPH or less on the rest. With completion of the Conn River upgrades and some relatively minor upgrades to the B&A it should be possible to do Boston-Springfield-Greenfield in under 3 hours, serving a massively larger population.