Passenger rail service between Springfield and Greenfield is now scheduled to begin on a pilot basis in the spring of 2019, state officials announced Tuesday.

The service will feature two round-trips per day, with stops in Northampton and Holyoke. Amtrak will run the service, and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation will pay for it. Southbound service will occur in the mornings and northbound in the evenings on MassDOT-owned Knowledge Corridor tracks. The pilot will end in the fall of 2021.

In a statement, Gov. Charlie Baker, who also committed to an 18-month study of potential east-west rail service between Springfield and Boston, said the pilot shows the administration is “increasing capacity where it is needed.”

The administration, which recently expanded public transportation through Chelsea, is also studying an underground rail link between North Station and South Station in Boston, pursuing the expansion of commuter rail service to the South Coast, and working on an expansion of South Station designed to accommodate more southbound train service.

In another expansion, the 62-mile Hartford Line is scheduled to begin operating Saturday, with trips running every 45 minutes between Springfield and Connecticut stations in Windsor, Hartford, Berlin, Meriden, Wallingford and New Haven.