Weekend Boston-Cape Cod Train Service Begins

Summertime weekend train service is set to connect Boston and Cape Cod.

Friday at 5:12 p.m., the first CapeFLYER will depart from Boston's South Station, continue through its normal commuter rail route to Middleborough, stop at Buzzards Bay, and then end in Hyannis on the Cape, nearly two hours and 30 minutes later.

The Friday evening-Sunday train service will run from this Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day on Sept. 2.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the CapeFLYER will depart Boston at 8 a.m. and make an additional stop in Braintree on its way to Hyannis. (The service will operate on a Saturday/Sunday schedule for Memorial Day Monday.)

Back-to-Boston return trips will leave Hyannis Fridays at 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m. A one-way Boston-to-Hyannis ticket costs $20, and round-trip fare is $35. Kids 5 and under ride free.

Passengers on the service, run by the MBTA and the Cape Cod Regional Transit ­Authority, can bring bicycles on the trains for free and, CapeFLYER stresses on its website, other "transportation connections [are] available to get from the train to your final destination."

After the Middleborough stop on Fridays and for the rest of the weekend, the train will offer bar service, including Cape Codders, the T says.

It's been 25 years since the last Boston-Cape Cod rail service ended. As The Boston Globe reports on the connection's history, the CapeFLYER is just "the latest iteration in an on-again-off-again history of Boston-Cape train service that has spanned more than a century."

Amid fluctuating ridership, the rail service's operating costs have, in the past, proven too much to sustain.