Springfield Amtrak (Boston: apartments, condos, high crime)

[ogplife]

I had a couple of questions regarding this area. First off it is located at 66 Lyman street. Is that downtown Sprinfield? What is the area around Amtrak like? Is that a high crime area? What type of housing is in that area?condos/coops? Multifamily? SFH? or a mixture of them all. Any comments would be greatly appreciated?

[willdufauve]

Yes, it's in downtown Springfield. It's a reasonably safe area if you're taking the train, with the usual disclaimers about big city common sense, etc. There isn't much housing near the station. There's a bar or two, parking lots, restaurants. It's the downtown business/shopping area. I haven't ever looked but there might be apartments above the street level shops in some buildings.

[ogre]

I would emphasize those usual precautions to take in a city. Downtown Springfield is rather seedy. There also often seem to be some gangstas, or wannabe ganstas, hanging around downtown, mostly out in front of the bus station that's down the street and around the corner from the train station.

Some advice about which train to take: Boston-to-Springfield it works to take whatever train leaves at the most convenient time. If you're traveling from Springfield east, the trains arriving in Springfield are near the ends of their runs, so the accumulated delays have added up by then. Trains coming up the east coast as well as the Lake Shore Limited coming from Chicago all make stops in S'f'ld. Be warned that the Lake Shore Limited in particular is often a couple of hours late, since all the delays along the way have accumulated quite a bit all the way from Chicago. You're more likely to find that the train is on time, or reasonably close, with one of the trains coming up the coast.