Amtrak: Empire Builder and Borealis (TCMC)

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby mulad » June 19th, 2014, 2:05 pm

I sent a note to folks at the Passenger Rail Office of MnDOT a few days ago, and got this response from Praveena today:
We are expecting to complete the 2nd daily Amtrak train feasibility study by the end of this summer and are hoping to have a report to share at that point. MnDOT is working with Amtrak and WisDOT to complete the feasibility study and identify next planning steps for this study. We have not identified funding sources for future phases of the project.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby bubzki2 » July 10th, 2014, 2:45 pm


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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby grant1simons2 » July 10th, 2014, 2:54 pm

In their defense that's a pretty shit train. Took a 3 hour delay to get my grandpa here from Milwaukee

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby bubzki2 » July 10th, 2014, 2:55 pm

In their defense that's a pretty shit train. Took a 3 hour delay to get my grandpa here from Milwaukee
Correction: the train is nice. However, sharing the line with freight is absolutely debilitating for the usefulness of this route. A second daily train would allow for delays of no more than 12 hours. Last time I rode this Eastbound? 15 hours late.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby FISHMANPET » July 10th, 2014, 3:02 pm

My Westbound departure for my honeymoon was 4 or 5 hours late, and that was awful (though we made the best of it). I'd love to take the train to Chicago, because driving is a pain, flying is expensive and/or terrible (Spirit airlines) and a bus ride is uncomfortable to say the least. A train would be great, but I just can't rely on it to not waste half of a weekend getting there and back.

At least my train has never broken down. But let me tell you, when the Empire Builder goes west 6 hours late, it makes a gorgeous journey into a shit journey. You're supposed to sleep through North Dakota and wake up to Yellowstone, instead we slept through Minnesota, were awake through North Dakota, slept through Yellowstone, etc etc.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby mattaudio » July 10th, 2014, 3:04 pm

If we add a frequency to Chicago, I'd rather see the EB decoupled from *all* frequencies to Chicago in order for it to maintain the best possible service level MSP-CHI. Described here on the Intercity Rail to Chicago thread. https://forum.streets.mn/viewtopic.php?f=18& ... 56&#p51886

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby grant1simons2 » July 10th, 2014, 3:10 pm

Amtrak from Milwaukee to Chicago is one of the best things I've ever been on. It was fast and efficient, on time, etc. You go through all these pretty areas and you can really get to speed. The time flew by and that's what I hope one day for the MSP-MIL or MSP-CHI. High speed rail would really be best but we'll see what we can get

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby mulad » July 10th, 2014, 3:16 pm

Some related background on BNSF's traffic growth along the corridor. I'm a bit skeptical about how they downplayed the movement of oil trains, though -- they mentioned only 1 to 3 go to the northwest each day, but my sense is that many more go east. Just take Northstar one day and count how many you see. At any rate, their non-oil business is apparently growing pretty well too.

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/fre ... channel=50

I'm a bit hopeful the delays are winding down -- the eastbound train on July 5th (coming through here on the 7th) was only 37 minutes late into Chicago, but things got worse again in the following days. Amtrak is still expecting slow movement through the end of September...

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby MNdible » July 10th, 2014, 3:19 pm

My Westbound departure for my honeymoon was 4 or 5 hours late, and that was awful (though we made the best of it).
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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby web » July 10th, 2014, 6:48 pm

not yellowstone....glacier....but this is why train travel is stagnating....its unreliable.

also in canada. I took the canadian from vancouver to toronto and back. going east ended up 18 hrs late(thought going home later would be better).....oooops worse over a day late.....I had missed hotels and missed connections etc....but all in all I survived. Funny the canadians think amtrak is great compared to via.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby EOst » July 10th, 2014, 8:43 pm

Train travel would be extremely reliable if we were willing to make the necessary investments. But yeah, running on mostly century-old infrastructure, it's hard to make long train rides run on time.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder

Postby Suburban Outcast » July 10th, 2014, 9:41 pm

Sooner or later there is going to have to be a double-tracked (or even triple-tracked in busy areas) layout, and then Amtrak should get priority over one track while the private rail companies get the other. When the other track isn't being used, then it can be used by freight trains or vice versa. Obviously it wouldn't be cheap, but it would benefit both Amtrak and the private rail companies. Though given we are so used to only having single-track layouts, I presume there many be quite a few issues with ROW especially in urban areas if they were going to lay an additional track.

(just tell the public its for oil which it basically would be anyways)

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby martykoessel » December 2nd, 2014, 4:48 pm

I posted the following message amid the discussion of airport noise at MSP. I never got a response, which indicates either that my thought is kinda dumb or that nobody saw it. I'm still curious, though, so I'm moving my comment to this thread. Can any of you explain a)why my thought is dumb or b)if any concrete figures exist to make more sense of these musings. Thanks!

As someone very much affected by airport noise, I still believe that the airport should not be moved. Even if politically possible, I think the billions this would cost would be an unwise use of public funds, given all that could be accomplished alternatively.

Among these alternative things might be a high-speed rail link between the core cities and Chicago, with a station near O'Hare. Last I read, I think about 17% of the flights leaving MSP were to Chicago. I'd be very interested in what percentage of these flights (as well as a few to Milwaukee) could be replaced by efficient high-speed rail transportation. Have studies been done on this?

If, say, 60% of air travel to Chicago could be replaced by high-speed rail, that would go a long way toward addressing capacity issues at MSP. Also, some of the cost objections to high-speed rail might be answered by doing a cost-benefit analysis of how much could be saved through reduced need for infrastructure improvements at the airport. Do any of you know enough about all the related points to weigh in on this issue?

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby mattaudio » December 2nd, 2014, 5:04 pm

It definitely is a valid concept, and I've heard some of our local electeds and other airport noise/environment advocates echoing the need for HSR to play a long-term role in air demand reduction.

The problem with flights between MSP-CHI is that a low percentage is actually origin and destination traffic. Much of that traffic is connecting to hubs at MSP (Delta, maybe Sun Country), ORD (United, American, Spirit), and Midway (Southwest).

But, on the flip side, a rail network serves a string of nodes in a way air travel cannot without a scissor at a hub. MSP-CHI rail could also serve MSP-RST, MSP-LSE, MSP-MSN, MSP-MKE, etc. And with a full midwestern network, it could serve MSP-GRR, MSP-DTW, MSP-IND, MSP-CLE, MSP-STL, etc. As the network of rail grows, the network effect kicks in.

It's not unrealistic that we could get 50% mode share via rail in those scenarios. Of course, airline industry execs are not happy about such an idea.
Related: Why More Northeast U.S. Travelers Take the Train Instead of a Plane, in 2 Charts http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/11/ ... ts/383158/

Another interesting concept, which would fit better in the MSP Airport thread... What if the government allowed airlines to form city-pair specific joint ventures, with regulated pricing, to operate high-demand routes with higher gauge metal at lower prices? Instead of having 50+ flights a day between Chicago and MSP, we could let airlines have a JV that operated the available seats with 1/3 - 1/2 the flights a day... a significant reduction in expenses, without sacrificing frequency. MSP-DEN, CHI-NYC, LA-SFO, etc come to mind -- these bloodbath routes aren't moneymakers for the airlines. I'm sure there's a price at which they'd accept deeper route-specific regulation and fare control in order to form JVs and realize substantial cost savings.

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby FISHMANPET » December 2nd, 2014, 5:07 pm

We don't do much intermodal traffic planning in this country, and that's a shame. High speed rail really excels in corridors about the distance of here to Chicago. I believe Europe has a lot of single ticket train > airport connections. I don't think it would be crazy to have a flight to say California that would connect to Chicago be HSR TO O'Hare the a plane to California.

Delta probably wouldn't be on board with that directly, since they don't connect through Chicago. But I'm sure potential expansion plans at MSP and Chicago airports are taking into consideration growth of travel between those two places. The cost could get really large if the only option is airport expansion, but if we included HSR in some capacity that could change the equations quite a bit. Chicago has the potential to be a really strong regional passenger HSR hub, and that could change the flight landscape quite a bit.

So I think it's a great idea but unfortunately things don't work in such a way right now that such things are considered.

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby Mcgizz » December 3rd, 2014, 12:11 am

If you are claiming that the airport should not be moved due to the cost of moving such a large piece of public infrastructure let us not forget how much HSR to MKE would cost (I understand the proposal would be to Chicago but the MKE to ORD/CHI section's cost shouldn't play into our prediction since that project is likely to happen far before any extension to MSP would occur). It would be a staggering cost and I think one could argue that the billions required to make such a dream happen could be of equal value to people affected by current noise or increased noise levels at MSP. With that said I am a huge proponent of the HSR project and am a fan of keeping the airport right were it is. There could be a lot of possibilities of utilizing interline/code sharing an international air fair ticket with any HSR. I know Air France does it for people attempting to go to Strasbourg from CDG.

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby mulad » December 3rd, 2014, 1:16 am

Land area is also an issue -- I'm sure there will be a desire to make MSP take up a larger footprint somewhere down the line. It's already around 4 square miles, and that's comparatively small (or at least that's what the consultants were saying when I went to an airport upgrade open house last year). That's the equivalent of a couple hundred miles of rail right-of-way (varying depending on exactly how wide of ROW you want). If you were to move MSP across the river into St. Paul, it would wipe out all of Highland Park plus a few other neighborhoods

For now at least, rail can have the advantage of being a lower-hassle service. A well-run service could let people show up just minutes before the train leaves and still be able to get on board, compared to what seems like a minimum of 45-60 minutes in my experience for getting through security and dealing with the long boarding process for an aircraft (one door on a plane versus many doors on a train). That makes it more practical to convert a car trip into a rail trip, as compared to flying. Trains also make intermediate stops, so some travelers can drive, say, 50 miles to their nearest train station rather than 100 miles to the nearest significant airport. Of course, a lot of that advantage could go away if TSA-style security was implemented, which is unfortunately a real possibility somewhere down the line.

Intermediate stations means a higher number of trip combinations -- rather than just flying back and forth between two city pairs (or occasionally making one intermediate stop), a train making just a few stops in between the endpoints can have a dozen or so possible trip combinations. Train lines have the dual role of end-to-end connectivity as well as feeding people from smaller areas into to the major transportation centers. That said, I'm not sure I'd bank on trying to directly connect to an airport, for instance. At least when it comes to light rail, airport connections often don't perform very well. The story may be different for HSR links, but it's hard to know for sure -- obviously, many airports are way out in the middle of nowhere. MSP is different in that respect, at least...

There are a number of smaller airports that only see 1-4 round-trips per day right now, often with long layovers and high prices, but the cost to add frequency to intermediate stops on a train line is comparatively low, so many times the small stops have just as frequent service on the route as the major endpoints do. Not guaranteed, of course, but if your nearest station has any HSR service at all, it's likely to be pretty frequent. At the same time, neither mode is going to serve every single little small town out there -- making more than just a few stops with HSR can make end-to-end travel time too slow, but I still figure there's a role to be played by slower "local" trains, though supposedly those are slowly disappearing over in Europe -- maybe that's something they'll realize was a bad idea, but it's hard to say.

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Re: Intercity rail to Chicago

Postby mattaudio » December 3rd, 2014, 9:17 am

I'm posting my response to moving the airport over in the airport thread.

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder and Intercity Rail to Chicago

Postby mulad » July 2nd, 2015, 2:10 pm

I decided to merge the Empire Builder and Twin Cities <-> Chicago rail threads. Well, the "9-month" study that kicked off on May 15th of 2012 (making this closer to 38 months) has finally been released. It's been put up here:

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/passengerrai ... study.html

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Re: Amtrak Empire Builder and Intercity Rail to Chicago

Postby grant1simons2 » July 2nd, 2015, 2:27 pm

So if I have this figured out right, scenario 1 and 3 would have a stop in Minneapolis at Target Field Station? Because that would be amazing!


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