SPRINGFIELD — The effort to provide passenger rail service between western Massachusetts and Boston is receiving new federal funding.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has secured a nearly $37 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration that will help cover track, signal and infrastructure improvements at Springfield Union Station, announced Governor Maura Healey’s office on Tuesday.

“This money is essential to providing safe and efficient rail service between western, central and eastern Massachusetts and to connecting our regional economies in Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester and Boston,” said U.S. Senator Ed Markey in a press release.

The investment “will increase rail capacity and reduce congestion, paving the way for future West-East rail service and improving north-south service,” Healey’s office said.

The new funding will help officials complete design efforts for the “Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration Project,” with the goal of eliminating a “rail choke point” in western Massachusetts and the West of New England, Healey’s office said. The project includes the modernization of track and signaling systems, as well as the modernization of railway facilities and the rehabilitation of station platforms.

MassDOT won $108 in federal grant money last year for the West-East Rail project, intended to improve the rail corridor between Worcester and Springfield.

Healey’s office on Tuesday touted other new federal grants that will strengthen Massachusetts’ freight rail network, including an $8.9 million grant that will be partially used for environmental and safety infrastructure improvements along the Pioneer Valley Road railroad which extends from Holyoke to Westfield. There is also a $21.6 million grant for a tri-state New England rail safety and upgrade project, as well as a $19 million grant that, according to Healey’s office, concerned the improvement of the facilities and tracks of the Providence and Worcester railroad.