Northern Lights Express

[grant1simons2]

The highways weren't built in a day. Actually it's kind of funny because the highways were built to stop people from riding trains and now we want to ride trains again.. anyways.

I'd much rather pay $25-$30 to sit on a train passing by all the scenery with my laptop drinking a cup of coffee, rather than driving on 35 north being passed by trucks, trailers, etc. I think if more people start realizing that it's a much less stressful way to travel, the demand will then start to rise more. And there is currently demand right now, I realize that. I just think this needs to be built soon so that those who doubt it can see it can work better with more support. Who knows, this train could still work pretty well on the cut budget too.

[Tiller]

The project manager says they expect the feds to cover 80% of the cost, yet the problems with that are A) there is no federal money set aside for passenger rail right now or in the near future

This isn't actually true, a federal transportation bill did just set aside $10.3 billion for passenger rail over the next 5 years. The only question I would have is if/how that money could be used here.

https://www.narprail.org/news/blog/pass ... tion-bill/

House and Senate conferees released the final transportation bill this afternoon, the product of weeks of negotiations. In a historic win for passenger train advocates, passenger rail was included as part of a comprehensive transportation bill for the first time ever—something NARP members have been working towards for years!

The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act is a five-year bill that would invest $305 billion in U.S. infrastructure. While the vast majority of it will go towards highways, $10.355 billion has been authorized for intercity passenger trains, along with $12.209 billion in dedicated funding for transit.

[mulad]

A couple things:

I don't recall 125 mph being anything more than an option. Since 125 mph requires full grade separation (on segments where trains go that fast), it would be very expensive. It would still be a good long-term goal to grade-separate as much of the line as possible, but 125-mph diesel locomotives barely exist, especially in the U.S. where we have heavier locomotives and train cars due to crash regulations. 110 mph would be much lower cost.

I don't like the way this has been chipped down, but there's a balance between frequency of service and speed. It wouldn't really make sense to run a 200-mph train just once a day, for instance. Does it make sense to run 110-mph trains 4x daily? That's a gray area. Maybe 90 mph is better for that frequency? I still think 110 mph with 8 trains is better for this corridor, though.

I don't think there's an absolute need for trains to be as fast or faster than cars. There are many trips for which our light rail system is only around 1/3 or 1/2 as fast as driving, but they've gone past expectations. Northstar didn't do as well, but it has a big problem with service frequency and duration. I see the balance between travel modes as something like the different legs of an electrical circuit. If you run a bank of resistors with different values in parallel, there will still be some electricity going through the high-resistance ones even if most of it goes through the low-resistance path. It's not an on/off switch. But every bit that you can improve travel time, frequency, and the cost to passengers means that you can attract more people and get a better balance.

I think BNSF's track spacing requirements for 110-mph traffic may be driving this to some extent. My recollection is that they want 30-foot spacing (centerline to centerline) between tracks. This is double the typical 14- to 15-foot spacing on regular rail lines. High-speed trains in other countries typically keep to the narrower spacing, so I'm not sure why American railroads are so paranoid about it (I think Union Pacific has a similar guideline. Canadian Pacific has said, at least in the past, that they're willing to allow fast trains to run with normal track spacing.)

[mulad]

...And to go along with my comment about the track spacing, I believe one of the big issues with this project is that BNSF has wanted to restrict passenger train speeds to 90 mph on track that is shared with freight. They've wanted all 110-mph operation on a new second track. I think that's mostly a (corporate) political issue, though.

Union Pacific is allowing 110-mph service along single-tracked segments of their Chicago - St. Louis corridor for Amtrak's Lincoln service, so perhaps BNSF management can be convinced that 110-mph is okay along the existing track to Duluth, as long as it's designed with sufficient safety in mind.

I had examined the corridor earlier this year and made a streets.mn post about it (though I probably forgot about the caveat I just mentioned about a second track for 110-mph traffic): https://streets.mn/2015/04/05/following- ... to-duluth/

There are already quite a few sidings along the route, though they're relatively short and aren't optimally spaced. I know that many/most have manually operated switches, though I think a few of the more frequently-used ones are able to be remotely controlled. I have to think that most of these are going to become motorized as PTC signaling continues to roll out, but I haven't heard anything specific about this corridor yet.

To reduce the chance of delay, and enhance the ability for trains to recover lost time, a number of existing sidings would need to be lengthened. I think the standard idea is to have a long siding of 8-10 miles at locations where fast passenger trains are scheduled to pass each other, and sidings about 3 miles long in other areas. Some infrequently-used sidings can still be fairly short. Today, the average siding on the route is about 1.6 miles long (around 8,500 feet) -- a bit short considering that many freight trains can reach 7,000 feet in length.

There are a couple spots where it would probably be good to add sidings to make the spacing more consistent, but that all comes down to whether the existing schedule requires it or not.

Bridges are a big blind spot for me -- I know that many of the bridges on the route are old and in need of replacement. These can be really expensive. Of course, like the entire line, they'd be shared between both freight and passenger service. BNSF should cover some of the upgrade cost themselves, but it's hard to say how much they'd offer since they're just as greedy about getting free money as anyone, and it's really easy for them to just say "no".

[David Greene]

I dunno. When I first heard about this line I was really excited. But the more I think about it the more I question its utility. I think it's likely true that most people traveling from MSP to Duluth are going to points further north. I could see this working with some kind of shuttle service. Are there any tracks at all north of Two Harbors that could be used by NSSR to provide connecting service?

We love our stays in Duluth. If Duluth had a good bike share program and Car2Go or something similar, it becomes that much more realistic to travel there by train. Seems like a chicken-and-egg problem.

Maybe it's worth building this to spur more transportation options along the North Shore. But I'm pretty skeptical that those will appear any time soon.

[froggie]

Are there any tracks at all north of Two Harbors that could be used by NSSR to provide connecting service?

Not really, and definitely not along the lake. The NSSR does tie into the CN tracks that head inland, but there's nothing along the shore, nor is there a direct wye connection to the rail line that connects to Beaver Bay.

[grant1simons2]

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/nlx/meetings.html

Upcoming meetings:

Twin Cities (Minneapolis/Coon Rapids stations)
Wednesday, Feb. 24
Fridley Community Center, 6-8 p.m.
6085 7th Street NE, Fridley

^^This is actually a good location. 8 blocks from the Northstar station and 4 blocks from 10, 824 and 854 bus stop. Streets.MN trip?

Twin Ports (Duluth/Superior stations)
Thursday, Feb. 25
Duluth Depot, 6-8 p.m.
506 Michigan Street West, Duluth

Cambridge
Monday, Feb. 29
Cambridge City Center, 6-8 p.m.
140 Buchanan Street North, Cambridge

Hinckley
Thursday, March 3
Hinckley-Finlayson High School, 6-8 p.m.
201 Main Street East, Hinckley

[grant1simons2]

The Anoka County Regional Rail Authority voted Jan. 26 to go out for bids to sell property in Coon Rapids it acquired in 2010 as a potential Foley Boulevard station site for the proposed Northern Lights Express passenger rail project.

The property comprises two parcels, one 9.37 acres and the other 3.96 acres, east of Foley Boulevard on the south side of the Highway 610 bridge in Evergreen Business Park at 93rd Lane and Evergreen Boulevard.

The rail authority paid $2.61 million for the parcels, but now the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which is the lead agency for the proposed NLX project, has identified another piece of county property on the west side of Foley Boulevard for a station location and has a prepared a concept plan, according to Tim Yantos, rail authority executive director.

http://abcnewspapers.com/2016/02/04/rai ... sell-land/

[grant1simons2]

February Newsletter

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/nlx/documents/newsletter.pdf

Cambridge station will be located 2 blocks from the downtown center. Hinckley loop will be decided in March. Superior station will be on the north side of Belknap and 3 blocks from Tower Ave (the main street).

Also reminder:

Twin Cities (Minneapolis/Coon Rapids stations)
Wednesday, Feb. 24
Fridley Community Center, 6-8 p.m.
6085 7th Street NE, Fridley

[kellonathan]

Couple things I noticed from the newsletter:

1. Are they pretty much set on the rolling stock/locomotive selection? (I highly doubt it.) The graphic in the newsletter has a Surfliner/Capitol Corridor looking bi-level cars.

2. Gosh. We should really stop calling this a high speed rail. 90mph is not high speed. I know it's sexy to call something a high speed, but let's not give people a false image of what a high speed rail is.

[talindsay]

Meh, the average actual speed of the Acela Express is apparently 72 mph from DC to Boston (cite), and this will almost certainly do better than that given the unobstructed track and the few stops. So experientially, it will do as well as America's only "high speed" train.

[acs]

154 miles / 2.5 hours is an average of only 62 mph. Interstate speed limit is 70 and many people go over that.

[talindsay]

I hope they're building a lot of excess time into that estimate because yeah, that's kind of terrible.

[VacantLuxuries]

Which is why the results of the Hinckley Loop study are going to make or break this project. It won't matter how long it takes to get to Duluth if you can sell Twin Cities riders on a stress-free trip to the casino.

[at40man]

154 miles / 2.5 hours is an average of only 62 mph. Interstate speed limit is 70 and many people go over that.

But that's not the average speed of travel. When I take road trips, I USUALLY drive above the 10 MPH speed limit most of the time. I also am a big nerd with data and numbers and when I calculate it out, my average speed from start to end has always been less than the speed limit. Heck, that was even the case for the latest trip where I calculated from tankful-to-tankful filling up at stations that were just off the highway.

Plus, time isn't always the only factor. Compared to driving, taking the train to Chicago actually takes less time because I am able to accomplish other tasks on the train that I wouldn't be able to if I was driving. So there's that whole opportunity cost thing too.

[mattaudio]

Wait, so some people *are* in favor of the Hinckley loop?

[VacantLuxuries]

Apart from the cost and the time addition to the MSP-Duluth trip, I think the ridership benefits of offering a direct connection to one of the biggest attractions between the Cities and Duluth would be hard to ignore.

[talindsay]

154 miles / 2.5 hours is an average of only 62 mph. Interstate speed limit is 70 and many people go over that.

But that's not the average speed of travel. When I take road trips, I USUALLY drive above the 10 MPH speed limit most of the time. I also am a big nerd with data and numbers and when I calculate it out, my average speed from start to end has always been less than the speed limit. Heck, that was even the case for the latest trip where I calculated from tankful-to-tankful filling up at stations that were just off the highway.

Plus, time isn't always the only factor. Compared to driving, taking the train to Chicago actually takes less time because I am able to accomplish other tasks on the train that I wouldn't be able to if I was driving. So there's that whole opportunity cost thing too.

You're exactly right, but it's surprising how few people actually know that truth about driving times - they haven't noticed that it takes them longer than their cruise speed times the distance. So they'll compare this to a 70 mph car trip, "which I can drive at 80", and not notice that it takes longer than that.

[RailBaronYarr]

On the flip side, the added 20-30 or so minutes driving on local streets and stopping for gas is probably worth it to a ton of people who plan on staying outside the core of downtown or want to drive around while they stay there. To say nothing of the added trip time one would spend getting to the train in Minneapolis to start their journey (I say this as a person who would spend 30 minutes on a bus then walk 10 minutes to the platform from where the 6 drops me off). Not saying I don't think a connection to Duluth and Superior is great.

As to Hinckley... for the reasons outlined above, most people would rather just drive the 1.5 hours to a casino. It's not that arduous. I guess put me in the camp of supporting a downtown stop with the casino running a well-timed shuttle 8x daily to the station with integrated luggage handling if necessary.

[twincitizen]

Apart from the cost and the time addition to the MSP-Duluth trip, I think the ridership benefits of offering a direct connection to one of the biggest attractions between the Cities and Duluth would be hard to ignore.

The casino loop is an awful idea for the following reason:

Without the loop, a station on the mainline would serve the town well, AND the casino would undoubtedly run free shuttles to meet the train.

By building the loop, the casino is served in the exact same manner, and the town is avoided entirely. That's an awful outcome.

It just seems so obvious to me. I understand that could be hard/impossible to account into official ridership forecasts, as the casino shuttle bus would be entirely privately funded and separate. But don't pretend for a second that the casino wouldn't run shuttle buses to pick up train passengers.