Sad to read about the shutdown of this rail system from Target Field to whatever city it went to the Northwest. My two cents was this was a thrown together orphan of a system that should have been better planned out before operations began. Would like to see what the ridership study done prior to start up forecasted for ridership. I still do not fully understand why they did not build out the rail or rail capacity needed to terminate at St. Paul Union Station at least vs Target Field.
Even more concerning is they are apparently in discussions now to extend the Amtrak Borealis West of St. Paul to take advantage of the NorthStar stations. It reads like a bad move in and of itself though I will withhold comment on that until I see the plans.
In my view, they should focus first on the track improvements they made a commitment to near Winona to get the first Borealis up and running. Secondarily, I would think it would be easier and cheaper to add a second Borealis Train before starting off on extending current service or adding new routes in Minnesota. We will see what happens here but I think sometimes rail passenger train advocacy could use more focus and work on the easier objectives first instead of going off on the pie in the sky stuff.
My recollection is that the service was planned to St. Cloud, but because BN had single tracked part of the line, service never reached that larger city. Also loss of some thru trackage in Minneapolis prevented extending it to St. Paul and still serve Downtown Minneapolis.
I covered a lot of this in a previous post in the legacy Trains forum (related to the Borealis service IIRC), but Iâm not having much luck digging it up. Short story: 1.) Downtown Minneapolis has a much higher number of office jobs than Saint Paul; 2.) the rail lines between the two have a lot going on and couldnât necessarily accommodate a reliable commuter service even at the minimal service levels initially employed by Northstar; and, 3.) you cannot serve Saint Paul, Minneapolis Target Field, and the Northstar Corridor along US-10 without making a slow backup move in or out of Target Field.
The ânecessary infrastructureâ to remedy the third issue would involve demolishing maybe 10 blocks of the âNorth Loopâ neighborhood and probably relocating portions of I-94. A less destructive but still widely improbable option would be to ditch Target Field, build a new station where the Great Northern station used to be (demolishing the Minneapolis Federal Reserve building and maybe a hundred or so apartment units north of there), close Great River Road, and convert the famous Stone Arch Bridge from a popular walk / bike trail back to an active rail line. This wonât happen in my lifetime.
There is a slightly less impossible path that would allow service from Saint Paul to Target Field to Saint Cloud without a backup move, but it would miss all of the Northstar stations. Nobody is talking about it. And as Stearns County ( Saint Cloud area) becomes more and more developed, that route will like become ten times more infeasible than it already is, within the next decade or two.
Theyâre talking about this now because the Metropolitan Council owns six commuter stations that it has no more use for. They either have to find someone to take them over (and sign new agreements with BNSF, because theyâre on BNSF property), or demolish them. The only potential user would be an extended Borealis service, so they need to decide ASAP if thereâs any chance of that happening - and whether someone is willing to step up and take concrete action to preserve any of these stations.
One proposal is that Big Lake would be turned into an Amtrak yard / servicing area. At present, the Borealis just sits on a track near St. Paul Union Depot overnight (I think one of the legs of the wye to the east of SPUD). In this scenario, trains from Chicago would stop at SPUD but not terminate there. They would instead go up to Big Lake for maintenance / refueling etc. and then return the next morning to start the trip to Chicago. It could stop at one or more of the existing stations MTC currently has on the line, or not. The Fridley station (suburb north of Minneapolis) has been suggested as an alternate âMinneapolisâ stop for the line.
I guess if you arrived at Target Field âpushingâ rom points west, swapped ends at Target Field, and âpulledâ all the way to Saint Paul, then the time involved would be walking from one end of the train to the other, re-initializing PTC, and doing a Class 3 brake test. Maybe 10 minutes?
Youâre right, this is probably preferable to doing a backup move. It might not be faster but it would take a lot less mainline track occupancy and dispatcherâs attention.
What you would really be doing, of course, is operating two routes in and out of a stub terminal at Target Field. And the second of those two routes - from Saint Paul to Target Field - is even less well-suited for commuter rail than the first.
Extending the Borealis to Target Field would make more sense from a transportation perspective, except for the fact that Target Field does not have the infrastructure for serving intercity trains. Target Field was studied as a potential terminus for what became the Borealis service, but it was found to be infeasible.
The demolition of the GN station in Minneapolis and its associated rail infrastructure was really devastating for any attempts to provide regional rail service in the Twin Cities. That station was at the hub of a bunch of connecting tracks that allowed you to go efficiently in any direction. See this photo from the University of Minnesotaâs awesome aerial photography site, MHAPO.
Now that itâs goneSaint Paul is the only hub, and downtown Minneapolis is on a spoke. Unfortunately (saying this as a Saint Paul resident), Minneapolis is closer to where most people want to go.
That is my point though. Minnesota should fix this basic issue before going off on a path of developing a bunch of new rail passenger spoke lines radiating out of the Twin Cities. Whatever the cost they need to fix the track situation in the downtowns or come up with a feasible alternate solution for serving all the end points they see as viable destinations. I donât agree with the bulldozing everything approach either.
Even Dallas was able to propose a decent downtown High Speed Rail station (though it will probably never happen) as a potential goal. Seems like the Twin Cities canât even make that initial step. Maybe they have not considered it. I have only been in the Twin Cities a few times in my life.
The rail advocacy groups are definitely a contributing factor in confusion I am finding in a lot of cases with state Amtrak service. Just been my observation they are more a âjump on the bandwagon of high hopesâ approach than a rational approach to implementing new service or improving what they have already.
There IS no option that doesnât involve bulldozing everything. With the exception of a single east / west rail line (the BNSF Wayzata Sub) ALL of the land in downtown Minneapolis that was given over to rail infrastructure in the 1970âs has been redeveloped, mostly into dense commercial and residential buildings with some park land / trails.
Dallas HAS its historic Union Station already. (Why would they not just use that for the high speed rail station, instead of building a new one adjacent to it?) Minneapolis, on the other hand, knocked theirs down and tore up all the tracks leading to it. Thatâs the difference.
You could put a station across the river and a couple miles east of downtown Minneapolis that would have good connectivity to most of the rail routes that have been proposed. That would be pretty much equivalent to the Renssalear station that serves Albany, NY. But it wouldnât get commuters to where the jobs are.
This makes very little sense unless the intention is to serve several of the Northstar stations.
Imagine the train is at Minneapolis Junction, which is where the line to Fridley / Big Lake / Minneapolis Junction diverges from the line to Target Field. Why on earth would you choose to turn right and head for Big Lake (pop. 12k) instead of turning left and terminating at Target Field, Minneapolis (pop. 430k with transit connections to Bloomington, Saint Louis Park, Eden Prairie, etc.)?
When the initial feasibility study for the Borealis service was performed, there were 5 Northstar round trips per day serving Target Field. Additional layover track would have had to be constructed within the station, and the study also indicated that BNSF would have required mainline improvements between Minneapolis Junction and Target Field. With the commuter trains out of the picture, some or all of those requirements go away.
Now, getting the train from Saint Paul Union Depot to Minneapolis Junction is not necessarily trivial or cheap. Thereâs a lot of freight railroading happening between those two points, and three or four freight railroads that would have to consent. But if you can lick that problem, itâs pretty obvious that the correct terminus would be downtown Minneapolis.
No I read and understood what you wrote and as a rule I do not believe in absolutes. Went over this a while back in the Trains Forum when I was told it was impossible to run a passenger train along the front range of the RockiesâŚI didnât accept absolutes back then either. I am sure they will figure something out here that serves Minneapolis if that is where most of the folks are headed.
The solution in Dallas long ago to get T&P access to Union Station was to run down a City Street, it is now called Pacific AvenueâŚyou can see it on any map of the City. Hence I do not believe in the absolute NO option without bulldozing a mass amount of buildings as a valid answer (I thought that was an existing solution in San Diego to reach the rail passenger station thereâŚrun down a street).
That aside there are also alternatives some of which you mentioned but I am sure there are more. Bottom line is here they need to assess all the available options and pick one as a plan and go with it. I donât expect that to happen overnightâŚlook at how long it took Madison, WI to figure out a downtown station location with a lot of the trackage still in place.
Looks like on Google Earth they have the NorthStar locomotives parked right in front of Minneapolis City HallâŚthough I am not sure if i have the right set of tracks and that isnât the LRT system.
The City to the Northwest you made reference to is Big Lake, about 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis. I also understand that the 7 mile stretch of single main track around Little Falls on the Staples Subdivision was double tracked some time ago. Why they did not extend the service to St. Cloud when the double track was done, I do not know. I am sad to see the service disappear.
OK, as a local, let me try to mention a few things that may be confusing here.
As far as Big Lake, the suggestion isnât that Big Lake should be a first class Amtrak station in lieu of building a new station in Minneapolis. The suggestion is that, rather than having the Borealis trains sit out in the snow on a sidetrack near St.Paul Union Depot, they would - after all the passengers had disembarked - run up to Big Lake, where Amtrak would build a yard / servicing area for their equipment. Some have suggested, if you do that, you could stop at a station on the way, like Fridley - just as some long distance travellers going to or from Chicago can stop at one of the outer stations rather than going all the way downtown.
When Amtrak started in 1971, St. Paul Union Depot was closed (and was used for US Postal Service storage); trains only stopped at the Great Northern station in Minneapolis. When the GN station was demolished, a new smaller station was used in the âMidwayâ area between the two cities, on tracks owned by Minnesota Commercial Ry. Eventually SPUD was renovated, and Amtrak moved there; it also serves the light rail and several bus company lines.
Keep in mind downtown Minneapolis is only about 10 miles away from SPUD. Itâs closer to downtown Minneapolis than the âMinneapolisâ airport is (which is actually âTwin Cities Internationalâ, or MSP). No one here has a problem going from anywhere in the Twin Cities to SPUD to get on a train, and I can guarantee no one is going to tear down blocks and blocks of buildings just to build a new Minneapolis depot when the existing depot is - if anything - under utilized. With Borealis, SPUD has doubled itâs number of daily trains from 2 to 4 (Empire Builder east/west, and Borealis east/west). One large station is fine.
MTCâs light rail lines run on surface streets, but in their own blocked off lanes in the center or to one side of the street. It does go right by Minneapolis City Hall. Target Field station is served on the street level by the light rail, and the Northstar runs on a lower line running behind the left field stands. Itâs essentially like a bus stop or small commuter railroad station but with a lobby area tucked into a corner of Target Field where you can buy tickets and look up schedule information.
Itâs possible that you have been seeing different internet rumors than me, but I think youâve got it backwards. The purpose of running the trains to Big Lake would be to serve one or more passenger stations along the way, and the reason it allegedly would be feasible is because thereâs a spot at Big Lake where they could service the trains. There isnât any reason at all why Amtrak would want to deadhead 60 - 90 minutes from SPUD to Big Lake to layover there, when they appear to be capable of laying over at SPUD. (And if that doesnât work for whatever reason, they can deadhead to Midway.)
To be clear: I havenât been involved in any discussions between Amtrak, Met Council, MnDOT, and / or BNSF about Borealis extensions and have no idea if any of those conversations even exist. Iâve only seen anonymously-sourced internet rumors like everyone else here. I do know first-hand that Met Council and BNSF have been discussing the future of the Northstar stations. If anyone is in fact discussing running Borealis trainsets to Big Lake (outside of internet chat forums and social media), the likeliest reason is that someone out there, possibly a politician from the northwest suburbs, wants to explore possible new rail service to certain Northstar stations before they get demoâd.
Minor nit: those tracks are technically owned by a company that is a successor to the Minnesota Terminal Railway, which in turn is owned by BNSF, UP, and CPKC. Minnesota Commercial leases the ROW and all of the track and other improvements from that company.
Jamaica Station in Queens is only 13 miles from Penn Station in Manhattan, but I donât think people would be cool with terminating the LIRR at Jamaica and taking a 45-minute light rail ride from there
It doesnât help that weâve been mashing together several topics here. For commuter rail or regional rail, SPUD and Minneapolis are two totally different places that are 30-50 minutes apart by transit. At 20-40 minutes apart by car, they are closer together than most rural Amtrak long-distance stations but within the realm of normal spacing for urban areas on corridor routes like the Borealis. They are slightly farther apart than the Milwaukee and Milwaukee Airport stations.
They could also throw in the towel completely with BNSF and just proceed with the liquidation / demolition as that might be the cheaper option at this point. I heard via YouTube two trainsets are already spoken for. Amtrak wants to lease one for Chicago to Milwaukee service. I believe TRE is the second party that wants to lease one for the World Cup games this Summer. Those are just temporary leases it sounds like. The Chicago to Milwaukee service might be dangerous as it might accidently expose the folks in Chicago to the superior Bombardier equipment. Looking at the interiors though they look kind of worn and I donât see the tables or digital display that TRE has.
I am not sure Minnesota is done yet with new rail passenger service optionsâŚstay tuned.
The big lake facility certainly is needed by Amtrak. The apparent lack of indoor facilities for Amtrak could enable future Amfleet work much similar to Brunswick.
Does Vikings stadium on game days have a lot of fans travel to it by light rail? I see on Google Maps that the line is located with a stop right next to the entrance.
Canât speak for Vikings games since they donât overlap with my commute, but when Twins games get out the light rail is always packed, standing room only at beat. I donât think that football would be any different.
Yes. There are Park-and-Rides where you can park for free and take the train to the game. Also the Mpls-St.Paul line on University Avenue serves the University of Minnesota, with a stop next to the Uâs football stadium. It sees VERY heavy service on gameday Saturdays.
One other thing to keep in mind is the âTwinâ Cities is really more like three. Minneapolis is the stateâs largest city and St. Paul is second. Bloomington and Duluth are more-or-less tied for third. Downtown St. Paul is about 10 miles east of downtown Minneapolis; Bloomington is about 10-12 miles due south of downtown Minneapolis. The Mall of America is in Bloomington, and just north of the Mall is the MSP airport - both are on the original light rail line.
Also keep in mind Minneapolis and St. Paul each have their own suburbs. If you work in downtown St. Paul, you most likely arenât going to buy a house or rent an apartment in Minneapolis or one of itâs suburbs. Youâre going to go to one of the St. Paul suburbs, like Woodbury or Hudson WI. You might go years without going to Minneapolis.
Like the light rail, the NorthStar equipment is owned by the Metropolitan Transit Commission. I have heard that some of the cars and engines either already are, or may soon be, leased to Amtrak. As you may know, ridership on the Borealis and Builder have been affected by a lack of passenger cars.
BTW, during Covid shutdown, NorthStar ridership went down by 95%. Thatâs ultimately what killed it, not bad planning or bad operations.
