High speed?????? The Vermonter?
From the region’s northern reaches in Greenfield to its southern end in Springfield, regional planners, municipal officials, economic development experts and others are lobbying intensely for a system through which as many as five locomotives would operate along upgraded tracks between the two cities, with stops at Holyoke and Northampton.
Five locomotives?
Running some of the Amtrak shuttle trains that now travel between New Haven and Springfield north to Greenfield and back.
The model for this, extending an Amtrak route beyond its normal city-to-city corridor to a smaller locale, is the Wolverines, which all currently go beyond Detroit to Pontiac.
Of the options listed in the article, what makes most sense to me would be the continuation of some of the Hartford Line (NHHS) trains to Greenfield, making it NHHSG. While the portion north of Springfield is known as the Knowledge Corridor, it isn't really a corridor if the area is only served by the once-daily Vermonter. And the so-called Amtrak Shuttles would be called into running extra mileage so that they would not really by shuttles anymore. Commuter rail will be more spread out during the day, with 12 of the 17 round trips going beyond Hartford to Springfield, and of those12, perhaps 5 locomotives trains could extend further to Greenfield.