Twin Cities to Eau Claire regional rail

[DanPatchToget]

I assumed the station would be on the mainline and it would be more of a park & ride for people living in Stillwater. If this does go through I’d like to think it would open the door for a separate commuter rail project to Downtown Stillwater.

[Korh]

didn't know about the old Stillwater spur so decided to look into it and made a quick drawing of it

Green is the main line that the Eau Claire train would use, orange is the ROW that still has some track, and yellow is the ROW that doesn't (pretty sure its a bike trail now)


In summery the spur is about 6 miles long (4.5 with track, 1,5 without) so I see two possibilities

If demand ever grows for more trains, west central wisconsin rail coalition (group behind the project) can divert some trains to Stillwater from Hudson (possible but would take years of the train successfully running)

Stillwater and the other cities along the spur can invest into making it a new lrt/streetcar inturburban/etc. that connects to one of the stations (to bad that's definitely not gonna happen)

[DanPatchToget]

didn't know about the old Stillwater spur so decided to look into it and made a quick drawing of it

Green is the main line that the Eau Claire train would use, orange is the ROW that still has some track, and yellow is the ROW that doesn't (pretty sure its a bike trail now)


In summery the spur is about 6 miles long (4.5 with track, 1,5 without) so I see two possibilities

If demand ever grows for more trains, west central wisconsin rail coalition (group behind the project) can divert some trains to Stillwater from Hudson (possible but would take years of the train successfully running)

Stillwater and the other cities along the spur can invest into making it a new lrt/streetcar inturburban/etc. that connects to one of the stations (to bad that's definitely not gonna happen)

What makes you think it wouldn’t happen?

Maybe not a LRT spur, but commuter rail from Minneapolis and St. Paul would be great.

[Korh]

Well given how hard it is to get one lrt line going, a line that doesn't enter the MSP core area somewhere nor connects with any other metro line probably has a snowballs chance.

But now that I think about it, I agree a commuter line from Minneapolis and St. Paul to Stillwater would work with maybe additional stops in lake Elmo, the east end of St. Paul, and somewhere in between St. Paul and Minneapolis.