WESTFIELD, Mass. - The proposed East-West passenger rail project connecting the eastern and western parts of Massachusetts would run trains through Westfield, and the city wants to be a stop along the way.

Mayor Michael McCabe said a former train depot on North Elm street once was part of the Boston and Albany railroad. He said the first step would be buying back the property, which is now home to the chamber of commerce and an insurance company.

"So Mike Tierney and the Tierney group own the property," McCabe said. "He's a great guy, he lives here locally here in the city. We've talked about maybe converting this back to depot use."

The current plan has the East-West rail including Hampden County stops in Springfield, Palmer and Chester. McCabe said having one in Westfield also makes sense because of the impact it will have on neighboring towns.

"We have a city of 40,000 people here," he said. "Many of our people commute back and forth to Chicopee and to Holyoke and the greater Hampden County region."

For local businesses like The Yellow Quilt Shop in Southampton, having access to rail could make a huge difference.

"A lot of people don't mind traveling by train," shop owner Ginette Senecal said. "They save on gas. I certainly would be all for it. They could just hop on a train and head here. That would be wonderful. We take the train all time when we head to Boston, so I'd be all for that."

McCabe said although the adding an extra stop may cause a longer commute for some, it could also ease the burden during travel.

"One of the beauty of rail service is if you want to do work on your way to work and you want to log into the WiFi, you wanna sit with your laptop or you just don't want to do anything and you want to snooze for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever that happens to be," he said. "Those are the benefits of rail trails."

McCabe said he’s working with state leaders to get support for this proposal.