Good thing for Lesser that the Democrats won the House. US Representative Richard Neal of Springfield is now poised to chair the powerful House Ways and Means committee. Any spending bills, including that long-awaited infrastructure package, would go through him. Neal, as you might imagine, is a big advocate for connecting Springfield and Boston by rail.

After all, the fate of the Longmeadow Democrat’s beloved East-West rail project may well hinge on what happened in other states, where GOP-controlled House seats flipped to the Democrats.


Neal isn’t the only one in line for a promotion. US Representative Jim McGovern will probably chair the House Rules committee. Guess what? McGovern’s home city of Worcester would be a key link in any Springfield route. McGovern, too, is a fan of East-West rail.

The wheels are in motion, but there’s a long track ahead. A spokesman says Neal talked up East-West rail in a conversation with Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday, the day after the Republican governor won reelection. The Baker administration recently hired a consulting team, led by WSP USA, to study the project’s feasibility.

Lesser had been pushing for several years, but Baker was once reluctant to climb on board. The head of the Peter Pan bus service lobbied to block a rail-focused study, and the governor initially preferred a broader approach that included other transportation options. But Baker visited Springfield in June to announce his commitment to study passenger rail service to that city, and possibly all the way to Pittsfield.

It doesn’t hurt that key Boston business leaders, including Jim Rooney and John Fish, have signaled their support — or that it’s an election year.

The administration’s East-West conversion coincided with the launch of another important rail project: commuter rail service between Springfield and New Haven. Rick Sullivan, CEO at the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts, says demand for that service has well exceeded expectations so far.


The East-West goal: cutting to 90 minutes the time it takes to travel by train between South Station and Union Station. Proponents sometimes seem wary of the “high speed rail” tag: They might prefer that people envision garden-variety commuter rail, not fancy Maglev bullet trains. But configuring a CSX right-of-way for frequent passenger service still won’t be cheap: Sullivan says capital costs could approach $1 billion. (Amtrak still offers a Boston-Springfield connection, but it’s of the once-daily, slow-boat-to-China variety.)

How to pay for it all? Federal and state funds will be crucial. The private sector could chip in, much in the way that the Green Line extension to Medford is getting done. Meanwhile, other rail proposals — the North-South Rail Link in Boston, commuter service to the South Coast — may compete for money and attention. Some sort of South Station capacity expansion likely would be required.

Lesser says he looks to the Neal-McGovern tag team, and sees a path to success: Not since Tip O’Neill and Joe Moakley were in office has Massachusetts had a duo with such clout in Congress. Those two helped secure the federal funds that made the Big Dig possible. Now, Lesser hopes his region of the state can finally get its fair share.

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.