DEERFIELD — Officials with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) made local stops on Tuesday to see the progress on two of their projects firsthand.

Despite the downpour, “Nothing could rain on our parade as we celebrate this ribbon-cutting,” MassDOT interim Secretary Phillip Eng said at the first stop of the day — the East Deerfield Railyard.

MassDOT employees gathered with Select Board members and state Sen. Jo Comerford at the railyard to cap off eight years and $5.6 million of work on the site. Along with refurbishing four receiving tracks, MassDOT replaced four intermodal tracks and constructed a road for trucks that loops through the railyard, plus two loading areas. With these changes, drivers can move freight from trains to trucks at the railyard.

A Federal Railroad Administration grant covered 80% of the cost and the state paid for the remaining 20% of the $5.6 million.

“We are proud to see this historic transportation asset evolving to meet modern needs and helping position Deerfield and the surrounding region in continued economic development in the years ahead,” Select Board Chair Blake Gilmore said.

He shared his memory of a “booming” railyard in the 1970s.

“For generations, the railyard served as a major engine of productivity, supporting freight industry and jobs throughout western Massachusetts,” Gilmore said. “This project builds on that legacy.”

By incorporating truck traffic, the updates will boost the local economy by helping local businesses save money and time, create more railyard jobs and bring new products and supply lines into the area, Eng and Meredith Slesinger, MassDOT’s rail and transit administrator, stressed. Eng cited a statistic from the Association of American Railroads that every dollar invested in rail transportation ripples out into $2.50 of economic activity.

“This is an investment in the community,” Eng said. “This project allows Deerfield to remain a vital freight rail hub … but more importantly, it allows that all that are raising families here have a better future.”

Comerford described the railyard changes as “transformative.”

“We recognize here that MassDOT has its eye on regional equity … and the promising, game-changing nature of this investment — as the secretary and administrator noted — for our region and the entire commonwealth,” Comerford said. “MassDOT sees us in western Massachusetts. It knows what we need and our economies need, and it’s delivering for us.”

Comerford, Gilmore, Select Board member Trevor McDaniel and a team of MassDOT officials who helped push the project past the finish line cut a blue ribbon to signify the milestone.

From there, Eng, Comerford and a few other MassDOT employees traveled to the Stillwater Bridge to check out the site of another longstanding project in the works in Deerfield.

According to Gilmore, the town has had its sights set on updates to the Stillwater Bridge over the Deerfield River for more than 20 years. Structural issues threaten the safety of the 76-year-old bridge as storms, flooding and other “exacerbating” factors continue to wear down the soil surrounding the piers under the water, according to Jonathan Gulliver, the undersecretary of transportation and the state highway administrator at MassDOT.

The replacement bridge will follow modern standards, span a wider pathway with space for cyclists and last at least 75 years with protections against erosion, Gulliver said.

MassDOT contracted Northern Construction Service LLC for the project, which has an approximately $24 million budget.

Special Town Meeting voters approved a slew of easements for the bridge project in the fall, and Gulliver expects construction to start at the end of the summer.

“Infrastructure is everything for us out in western Mass,” Comerford said. “We have a lot of road miles to cover. We have a lot of bridges and culverts.”

Between the two Deerfield visits and a nearby stop in Hatfield celebrating MassDOT’s investments in dirt roads, “The state is really seeing us for the complexity of what we are,” Comerford continued. “It’s a good day for western Mass.”