In my view, despite all the chest beating and emotion surrounding the issue of people needing to return to the office…I don’t think it will last. So the drop in ridership related to the pandemic and people working at home, not sure we will ever see full recovery there and it might get worse. This massive spending on large corporate HQ (JP Morgan in NYC, AT&T in Plano)…waste of money for Executive egos.
Maybe ending NorthStar was not such a bad idea. Probably a bad future for Metra if what I think above actually holds true over time.
More to the point, restarting it – perhaps with some of the Amfleet cars now in the early stages of disposition discussion – would be comparatively simple if the perceived need should re-emerge.
Sorry was changing my post still above to be clearer.
I agree with what you say though. They might be able to salvage it and the stations somehow. Not sure how as I do not live there and have no clue on the traffic base.
Not necessarily. Any investment in the stations, and to a lesser extent in route improvements, will probably remain. As noted, acquisition of some aspects of rolling stock may be remarkably easier in the next few years.
This is a necessarily government-authorized service, so practical re-establishment follows political will. That will would necessarily presume financial authority.
Is there a clear need for a sleeper train across the Panhandle between Mobile and Jacksonville? Could the service be combined with one of the Mardi Gras casino services?
The better question is there a need for sleeper train to connect Florida to the west without having to go to DC?
For what it is worth, it doesn’t matter the answer to that question, as it is moot. The line across the Panhandle was sold to a short line almost 10 years ago, and has been reduced to a glorified branch. It needed many bridges replaced before the sale, I doubt much has been done on that front. Add in that it would also require installation of PTC, and you have just priced out any reason to do it.
One of my favorite YouTubers just did a nice story about Northstar and it’s last runs, showing the line in operation. May help folks in other areas kinda visualize it.
It is rather interesting that New Mexico’s rail runner appears to have weathered the COVID era OK. Something different about Minnesota’s route or population behavior maybe? Not sure. Not assessing any kind of blame or anything…just basic curiosity what the difference was.
A Trains Pro/NewsWire article yesterday mentioned that San Diego’s regional trains are back to pre-covid patronage. Another recent article showed that a northeastern metro area rail operation has surpassed pre-covid (I think it was around New York). Perhaps more well established systems had an easier time re-establishing ridership, whereas smaller metros where people only had a short history of commuter rail never had enough time to create an ingrained habit.
Regarding the section of single track that prevented the original Northstar from going to St Cloud, it was through Becker past the Sherco power plant about 30 miles +/-southeast of St Cloud. It was only about a ten mile stretch of single track.
Ironically, BNSF double tracked it with the expansion of the Bakken Oil Fields to handle the increased traffic caused by the resulting increase in oil trains.
However, the financial condition of the State of MN and the tepid ridership levels even before COVID-19 resulted in lack of Legislative support for funding and the increased BNSF traffic dampened the BNSF appetite to support more Northstar trains.
As to Borealis going to Big Lake for overnight servicing, it is about 47 miles from SPUD to the North Star facility in Big Lake.
That is almost 100 miles of round trip which would be very expensive even ifa shandful of riders could be picked up along the way.
Some guy on FB was proposing a round trip to Fargo and back instead of layover at SPUD. I said same thing as you did above basically. I am no railroad expert but geesh…there are crew, food, water, and fuel on that train that has to be taken care of at any layover as well as mechanical servicing and cleaning. Additionally, that extra leg presumes Wisconsin and Illinois are not going to get upset when the train is late because of that extra leg. They both are paying for the train as well and one of the reasons for the Borealis was the Empire Builder schedule was unreliable.
Minnesota has a lot of pie in the sky dreams which their track infrastructure in the Metro area does not currently support. Trains have to be car competitive, frequent, and on convenient schedules or else they will flop. It is a fairly simple formula in my view. So my hope is they would expand frequencies and boost ridership on what they have first. At the same time, maybe slowly start to address some of those track issues that are holding back their ambitions. Show success with the low hanging fruit as they say…first before you expand.
Very true. Methinks the FB poster was one of those " let’s draw routes in crayon" types not giving consideration to your points and not considering population. After all, passenger train services are supposed to serve people. Fargo? Metro population 226k.
If you live in North Dakota, the nearest big city is Minneapolis-St. Paul. So you want to go to Minneapolis for a Twins game let’s say. The Empire Builder leaves Fargo at 3:29 a.m. On your trip back, the Builder arrives back at Fargo at 4:13 a.m. So if you live there - or at most all of the stops in between - you don’t have a really convenient schedule. That’s why people are suggesting a second train that would go to/from Fargo-Moorhead at a better time. It could be an extended Borealis, or a separate train.
St Paul Union Depot is in the southeast corner of downtown St. Paul. If the Northstar had gone all the way to SPUD, I guess it would have been more convenient for someone from say Fridley going to Chicago via Amtrak to be able to take the Northstar all the way to SPUD. But for anyone going to a job in Minneapolis, or to the capitol or to downtown St. Paul’s office buildings, taking the light rail would be much more convenient. If we needed a commuter train from St. Paul to Minneapolis, the Milwaukee Road wouldn’t have quit running it’s hourly commuter trains 55 years ago.
BTW financial condition of the State of MN is just fine. The state has consistently run surpluses through both the Dayton and Walz administrations, even while cutting taxes.
The Milwaukee Road actually tried to keep their commuter train running in Milwaukee, running it at their own expense until I think it was May of 1972. Milwaukee to Watertown, WI…one round trip per day. They put in their first abandonment request in 1954 to the ICC(I am not sure if that was the regulatory body but I am sure someone will correct me if it wasn’t). The riders of the train were also actively showing up at hearings and saying it was a necessary service. The riders attempted to restart it via ICC as well after it was discontinued. Train was briefly resurrected in the 1980’s for two weeks as a demo with the Budd SPV2000. WisDOT said they would get right on this in the 1970’s and because of Lowell Jackson (WisDOT secretary not very friendly to rail when he was in office 1970s-1980s I think) who thought airports in Northern Wisconsin is what the state really needed for rich folks with second homes and airplanes…Milwaukee to Watertown ended up with a bus service and park and ride lots along I-94 (not sure if that still runs or not). Attitudes at WisDOT started to change after Mr. Jackson left WisDOT. First they passed a state constitutional amendment so that Wisconsin could subsidize rail, then they started to boost the Milwaukee to Chicago service more and started experimenting with other markets.
Not sure if that grass roots support still exists for Milwaukee to Watertown train and they have torn down most of the depots since that time. However , I believe the powers that be with Amtrak service are looking casually for a West Suburban Milwaukee Train Station stop for Amtrak service. I was told Pewaukee or Oconomowoc. Time will tell of course if that pans out.