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.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:The train gets its seat at the table amongst the portfolio of travel options from being able to promise (with the specced NNEIRI upgrades) relative schedule certainty and travel time consistency on any schedule slot of the day, something you will never get again with the express buses. That matters the world for a slice of the market.I completely agree. Increased congestion also appears to be impacting modal choice along the Portland - Boston corridor where the Downeaster continues to see record ridership despite historically low gas prices.