An MBTA commuter rail train waits at a station in 2019. The MBTA announced weekend service cuts beginning later this month. Photo by Paul Morris | Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

Commuter rail riders will feel the pinch of reduced weekend schedules later this month.

In the first salvo of MBTA service cuts approved in December, starting Jan. 23 trains will no longer run on weekends on the commuter rail’s Fitchburg, Franklin, Greenbush, Haverhill, Kingston/Plymouth, Lowell and Needham Lines.

Five lines – the Newburyport/Rockport, Framingham/Worcester, Fairmount, Providence and Middleborough Lines – will continue to run some weekend service at lower frequencies.

The MBTA in a statement pitched the schedule changes as a boon for riders, noting that Jan. 23 will also bring slight increases to the number of trains running on weekdays and will offer more than half as much weekday service as last year even though ridership is less than 10 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Commuter rail operator Keolis cut service by more than half in December as a short-term step to cope with significant staff shortages amid a COVID-19 outbreak. That reduction will remain in place through Jan. 22, officials said last week, and will be replaced by the new schedule a day later.