Freight Rail News and Happenings

[Andrew_F]

Is there any desire to cap the railroad trench through downtown and old St. Anthony (by Superior Plating)

On the downtown side it's a contributing feature to the Warehouse Historic District.

[twincitizen]

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/02/10 ... OGEN_VALUE_

Dayton presses railroads to pay more property taxes

[RailBaronYarr]

Imagine if MnDOT & counties had to pay property taxes for the land under roads & all their bridges.

[acs]

Yeah obviously the railroads should pay for the cost of separating roads and rail interchanges, because "They've imposed these burdens on other taxpayers in Minnesota". Funny, because last time I checked those railroads were put down way before the state decided to build a road over the ROW. Isn't extortion great?

In other news, the draft 2015 state rail plan is out!

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/planning/rai ... urces.html

[mulad]

"Officials didn't have specifics on how much railroads pay now in property taxes."

Well gee, that's something you'd like to know when some new tax proposal comes around (though off the top of my head, the number $8 million is ringing a bell -- not sure if that's right, though).

The state has about 4,400 miles of track, so getting another $65 million would be something like $15,000 per mile. I suppose that's probably low compared to typical property taxes, but it's pretty significant. High-speed rail in Europe costs between $30,000 and $50,000 per year to maintain, for instance. Supposedly highways cost something like $3,000 to $5,000 per lane-mile in maintenance costs. Just to show some context, not that it's necessarily good or bad.

[twincitizen]

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/290736391.html




Well this move will certainly put more freight trains on the tracks running parallel to Bottineau, for basically its entire run through Crystal, Robbinsdale, and Golden Valley. I'm not sure that it physically affects the location of the LRT tracks or anything, as co-location has been the plan all along. At the least, heavier and longer trains carrying oil, etc. will bring up safety issues, hamper TOD along the line, etc.

"Minneapolis, Crystal, Robbinsdale want say on plan to reroute freight, oil rail"
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/292305991.html

[lordmoke]

Correct me if I'm looking at this wrong, but isn't this going to send oil trains under Target Field? And isn't it a bad idea to run an explosive vehicle under a building that might have up to 50,000 people inside? Just saying.

[Silophant]

Yes and yes.

[mulad]

Imagine if every freeway ramp ever constructed went through this.

I can see the point in worrying about the stadium, though it's a short stretch and I'm certain there have been oil and ethanol trains through there before.

I like the idea of connecting these two tracks -- I'm pretty sure I'd suggested it in some earlier conversation about potential commuter rail lines, since it could let people from the MN-55 corridor get into downtown Minneapolis, and share tracks with a line along the I-94 corridor from Monticello.

It would be wiser in the long run to add more sidings and/or double track to the other CP corridor that goes through the northern suburbs. Those communities wouldn't be happy about it, of course, but it's a somewhat less-populated route.

I doubt there's much prospect of a hazmat bypass that would go around the Twin Cities entirely -- that would be a ton of track to build.

[HiawathaGuy]

Correct me if I'm looking at this wrong, but isn't this going to send oil trains under Target Field? And isn't it a bad idea to run an explosive vehicle under a building that might have up to 50,000 people inside? Just saying.

The stadium was built to withstand substantial explosions - I remember that being discussed before/during construction. There are obviously standards, and I believe the stadium was built to an even stronger standard. Also FWIW, the track goes under the promenade, not the actual stadium.

http://www.tkda.com/project-gallery/201 ... ?cat_id=13

[Silophant]

I suppose my worry was that the oil trains would be new for this track, but I suppose its not like they've never used this track for oil before.

Also, like you said, if TFS is going to be one of our major intercity rail stations, improvements to the lines leading to it can only be good.

[mulad]

Well, now a few weeks later, Hennepin County is trying to prevent this southwest quadrant connection from being built between the two railroads at the junction in Crystal. The county is negotiating to buy the property on the southwest side for between $1 and $2 million. The railroads have eminent domain power, so we'll have to see how it plays out. Pretty strong likelihood of a legal fight if the sale to the county goes through.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/295827031.html

[mulad]

...And on the other side of the metro, BNSF has bought six parcels totaling 250 acres in St. Paul Park for $9.8 million. Apparently no immediate plans to do anything with them. The city is a bit up in arms since they wanted to develop the area. Yay for the sprawl-blocking railroad? Hmm.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... evelopment
http://www.swcbulletin.com/news/politic ... -paul-park

This move surprises me, since the railroads made rumblings about potentially abandoning the line that runs next to the river, at least if the ideas in the East Metro Rail Capacity Study move forward -- that plan envisioned adding more tracks on the Canadian Pacific corridor which more closely parallels US-61, making the tracks closer to the river much less useful/necessary.

[grant1simons2]

And people wonder why I hate BNSF so much...

[MNdible]

Included in the sale, Wagenius said, were six parcels of varying acreage located west of County Road 75 and south of 15th Avenue...

They must mean east of 75, right? Not sure if there would be use for a switching yard here, but the site almost looks big enough to fit one in.

[Ottergoose]

There've been rumblings about a new intermodal (as in semi-trailer / container loading/unloading) facility in the Twin Cities area for a while; I've heard BNSF's current facility near the old Midway Amtrak Depot is getting cramped. A facility there would be well suited to handling Chicago - MSP trailers from UPS; their facility in Eagan would be a short distance away on a portion of 494 that doesn't get too bogged down in traffic.

I see there's also some sort of a big sand or rock facility in that area, could be used to load/unload frack sand?

Canadian Pacific has a large automobile transloading facility in that area too, that you might be able to fit in a parcel that size, maybe?

It's also close to the river; no shortage of commodities that are nice to be able to transfer from barge to rail...

[MNdible]

Just for comparison, the Lyndale neighborhood of Minneapolis is slightly bigger at 310 acres and has a population of about 7,500 people.

[mattaudio]

Haven't there also been issues with the CP automobile transloading facility, where switching operations foul the northbound CP/BNSF mainline? Though I assume that could be solved with a little investment in new side track to preserve the mainline.

[mulad]

CP's vehicle offloading facility is not far to the east/southeast of the area BNSF is buying. Yes, the siding there has been too short to fit the trains that feed it, so it has needed a longer (set of) siding(s). I currently measure the longest one at almost 3,900 feet -- I'm not sure if that's a change from the past or not.

BNSF themselves have a vehicle facility by their Dayton's Bluff yard. (Union Pacific's is off West 7th by Randolph. I'm not sure if there are any other rail-served new car storage facilities in the Twin Cities.)

Moving one or both of the BNSF intermodal yards (Bridal Veil Intermodal and St. Paul Intermodal) would probably free up a good amount of capacity on the Midway subdivision for through-running trains, and would make it a lot easier to fit more tracks into that corridor (which would be nice for some passenger services between Target Field and SPUD, for instance). However, the St. Paul Park site doesn't seem like it would have very good access to the rest of the metro area. Hard to say where else would be good for an intermodal yard, though.

[acs]

The draft state rail plan has a decent section talking about the challenges of the current inter modal yards on Page 10.
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/planning/rai ... port/4.pdf

This is a complete F*antasy of mine, but what about relocating Holman Field in St. Paul? The site would have great highway access with US-52, it would make a natural place for an expanded barge terminal (the port of St. Paul and below is at capacity, not helped by Minneapolis closing this summer), and there would potentially be enough room left over to relocate most of the industrial buildings west of US-52 around these new facilities. It would likely need a new RR bridge over the river somewhere on the east side, but afterwards it would maybe be possible to remove the tracks/bridge to the west (the one crossing under Robert street). Also, no more height limits in DT St. Paul!