Springfield, MA (SPG)

Ticket Revenue

FY 2011

$5,669,439

Station Ridership

FY 2011

157,724

Note: Fiscal year is from
October through September.

The Springfield station, which sits on a railroad viaduct above street level, opened in November 1994 to replace a smaller street-level building. Across the tracks stands the former Springfield Union Station erected by the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A) in 1926. Passengers entered Union Station from Frank B. Murray Street, and then had to move through the lobby and climb a set of stairs to an upper story in order to reach the platform.

Designed by the successors to the firm of Shelpley, Rutan and Coolidge, who had also designed Boston’s South and North stations as well as New York’s Albany Union Station, the Springfield Union Station is representative of their symmetrical Richardsonian Romanesque style, constructed in decorative brick and stone. It was the third such station to serve the city. When it was built, it served the many rail lines that passed through this industrial city including the Hartford and Springfield Railroad; New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad; and the Boston and Maine Railroad. The original complex incorporated at least eight through and terminating tracks, a large passenger waiting area the north-west end, a concourse, a fully equipped freight and express facility, and integrated interlocking control tower for signals and switches. The present-day station waiting room sits close to this tower on Track 8 at the elevated track level.

The renovation of Springfield Union Station and its baggage house, together with the adjacent site of the former Charles Hotel (now a vacant lot) is a project that has been in the works for the past years. The station, which has been vacant since the 1960s to early 1970s, stands boarded up today as does the three-story baggage house across the rail yard.

In 1989, the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA) acquired the station for $1.00 from private owner David Buntzman by means of eminent domain. A revitalization project was initiated by then-Mayor Richard Neal. However, early efforts to remodel were halted when the neighboring Hotel Charles burnt down; that land is now vacant.

In 2007, the state Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) awarded the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) and the city a $350,000 grant to create a new development plan for their Union Station; $37 million in federal funds were already earmarked for the project, $7 million of which had already been spent to stabilize the building, including asbestos removal and a new roof. The city leadership had long envisioned Union Station as a focal point for both transportation and urban redevelopment, integrating intra- and inter-city bus lines along with rail service and retail and office components—an ambitious plan that would have cost $115 million to complete.

The EOT grant provided the means to restart the project, and by October 2008, local, state and federal officials had unveiled a $65 million redevelopment plan to create a realistic, sustainable and state-of-the-art intermodal transportation center. The redesign was to include a retail center that would front on Main Street in the former Hotel Charles lot; space in the station building for retail, PVTA offices, ticketing, and a food court; and a 23-bay bus terminal and 400-space parking garage where the old baggage building now stands. The 63,000 square-foot underground concourse to the Amtrak facility would also be reopened to provide access from the station building.

In June 2009, PVTA and SRA drew up an agreement to create a new entity to manage this project. It was projected that selection of a design firm could begin in 2010, with completion in 2012. In July, 2010, a freeze on funding for the Union Station project lifted, and the plans for the (now) $71 million intermodal center will move forward. The Springfield Redevelopment Authority, now lead agency in the project, is eligible to receive approximately $29.7 million in frozen public funds, including about $26 million in federal funds, the remainder being state monies.

The city’s origins are based upon its location at a crossroads. William Pynchon of the Massachusetts Bay Colony led a company of explorers to the confluence of the Connecticut and Agawam Rivers, establishing their settlement in 1636, and incorporated it as Springfield, in honor of Pynchon’s English birthplace, in 1641. Springfield prospered as the Connecticut River provided a means of transportation north and south, as well as power; the east-west road between New York and Canada also ran through Springfield.

The area’s industries excelled in metal craft, given proximity to the New York State iron mines and easy transportation. The U.S. Army Armory was thus established in Springfield in 1794, the site selected by General George Washington, because the town was located at the intersection of major highways and the Connecticut River but far enough upstream to be safe from enemy attack. Supplies, skilled manpower, and adequate waterpower for manufacturing were all close at hand. The Armory quickly became a center for invention and industrial development. The storied “Springfield rifle” came about thusly, as well as the Garand semi-automatic rifle. In 1968, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara closed the Springfield Armory in a controversial move. The site is now a museum run by the National Park Service, as the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. Some of the Armory buildings house Springfield Technical Community College.

West Springfield, across the Connecticut River, became an industrial and rail transport hub, beginning with the coming of the Western Railroad in 1841; it became the Boston and Albany in 1870. Rail repair shops were also built in West Springfield in 1896. At the peak of its operations, there were two large rail yards there. The plentiful rivers and streams in the area also led to founding a number of paper companies in West Springfield, including Strathmore Paper (originally the Mittineague Paper Company, 1892), and Southworth Paper Company.

West Springfield was also an agricultural center. The first Morgan Horse was bred in West Springfield in 1790. By 1860, this sister-city was a center of greenhouse production, exporting fresh produce to Boston, a practice which continued into the 1940s.

From 1901 to 1953, Springfield’s factories also manufactured another American favorite, the Indian Motorcycle. During the 1910s, Indian became the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Indian's most popular models were the Scout, made from 1920 to 1946, and the Chief, made from 1922 to 1953. The Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company went bankrupt in 1953. A number of successor organizations have perpetuated the name in subsequent years, as Indian Motorcycles remain sought-after collectors’ items.

Springfield today is a major economic center in New England, with the greatest concentration of retail establishment in the area. The city is also home to the largest Fortune 500 company in Massachusetts, Bay State Health, with over 10,000 employees. The city also presents a concentration of institutions of higher learning—three four-year colleges, and in the greater Springfield area, 11 additional universities, including Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The combination of hospitals and schools has attracted a number of biotech firms. The city is also home to the western campus of Tufts University School of Medicine, at Bay State Medical Center.

In December of 1891, James Naismith introduced a new game to his class of 18 young men in an otherwise unremarkable gymnasium at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield: basketball. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame has honored the game’s greatest players and moments since 1959; however it had no physical home until 1968. Since then, the hall has been reinvigorated three times, and in September 2002, the third Hall of Fame saw its much-celebrated grand opening.

Another equally famous American icon comes from this city: in 1904, the German-American Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield. As he was first a political cartoonist during both World War I and World War II Geisel began using his mother’s maiden name professionally, signing his work simply as “Seuss.” History was made for children everywhere when his first illustrated book, And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street was published by Vanguard Press in 1937. The unforgettable The Cat in the Hat began as a project to illustrate a children’s primer using only 255 “new reader” vocabulary words; it was published in 1957, and established Geisel as the definitive children’s book author and illustrator. At the time of his death in 1991, Geisel had written and illustrated 44 children’s books, which have been translated into 15 languages, and provided the inspiration for television specials, a Broadway musical, and feature-length motion pictures.

Despite its long-lived economic engine, as with many larger cities, the Springfield city center has declined somewhat, even with the push for urban renewal in the 1980s. The redevelopment of Springfield Union Station as an economic center, given its location close to the new Riverwalk, the Springfield Armory Historical Site, and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, has appealed to city leaders for many years, despite the complexity of doing so with the large elevated station complex.

Amtrak provides both ticketing and baggage services at its staffed Springfield station, which is served by seven daily trains.