MSP to Rochester High Speed Rail

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
grant1simons2
IDS Center
Posts: 4371
Joined: February 8th, 2014, 11:33 pm
Location: Marcy-Holmes

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby grant1simons2 » August 7th, 2015, 10:04 pm

Since Lancestar2 is gone from here, he actually did some in depth research on this project.
So is this Wendy Meadley person seems to be the spokesperson right? I looked at the website information via

https://who.is/whois/nahsr.com

and it says Wendy Meadly reg. the domain and referenced her organization "Social Wendy Group" of which Wendy has a linked in profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendymeadley

While there I got a linked that displayed ther person ALSO viewed the page..
Which was Joe Sperber, who was the Rail group CEO Joe Sperber.

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/vie...%3B20196318%3B

Could our consortium troll be getting smarter. Could our super secret consortium be hiring an actual PR firm to be the public spokes person? Or can we confirm that Joe Sperber is an actual person even if his linked in profile suggests to be "fake"

The consortium always trolled in a way to encourage further development and try to get grander projects put together. Does anyone know more about these people and can go on the record to them being real?

I mean the official website for this rail group, talks about having grand plans for HSR projects across the the us yet they only have two projects they are discussing both of which involve the twin cities!

http://nahsr.com/

Not to mention the website was registered by godaddy for only 1 year. Not much faith in the organization to bundle for a few more years?

It just looks so suspicious...while ziprail domain name was last registered in 2011 for 10 years.

Why just troll a single forum for free when you can troll half the state for a few hundred bucks...

Silophant
Moderator
Posts: 4471
Joined: June 20th, 2012, 4:33 pm
Location: Whimsical NE

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Silophant » August 7th, 2015, 10:12 pm

The Consortium 2: Electric (Train) Boogaloo.
Joey Senkyr
[email protected]

Online
User avatar
Tiller
Foshay Tower
Posts: 964
Joined: January 17th, 2015, 11:58 am

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » August 8th, 2015, 12:49 pm

a PR firm
When reading through the consortium thread, It came to mind that there are actually companies (and other organizations) that shill on social media as a function. Governments do it too (proven via leaks), even though that's a matter rarely discussed outside of tin-foil clubs.

What was seen on linkedin with the original consortium is something you can pay for, though I have no idea what its purpose would be, or how this could be related (beyond it all being over-elaborate trolling, which seems more far-fetched atm).

It could potentially be possible that someone with some money wants to harm prospects for passenger rail here (or vice-versa?), though I ultimately don't have enough information for a good guess as to what is actually going on.

Edit: the NAHSRG website is set to expire this october, so we may get some new information if it's renewed, and if it isn't, then that's that.
Our offices are located at:

Riverview Tower
8009 34th Ave South
Suite 1550
Bloomington, MN 55425

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
Posts: 7752
Joined: June 19th, 2012, 2:04 pm
Location: NORI: NOrth of RIchfield

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » August 8th, 2015, 11:06 pm

Our offices are located at:

Riverview Tower
8009 34th Ave South
Suite 1550
Bloomington, MN 55425
And another twist, in the same building (yet different floor) as the PR/Social Media Shill Factory used by the Minnesota Infrastructure Cult. MoveMN uses Tunheim: http://tunheim.com/location/
#consortium

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
Posts: 7752
Joined: June 19th, 2012, 2:04 pm
Location: NORI: NOrth of RIchfield

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » August 11th, 2015, 5:57 pm

I asked where the Minnesota High Speed Rail Commission was at with regard to all this new stuff...
The Minnesota High-Speed Rail Commission is aware that a private company has expressed interest in constructing and operating high speed rail between the Twin Cities and Rochester. However, the Commission has not had any discussions with MnDOT or the North American High Speed Rail Group (NAHSRG) on the proposed service or the NAHSRG’s desire to have the service ultimately connect to Chicago.

Since the Commission has not met with the private rail group it would be premature for me to comment at this time on behalf of the Minnesota High Speed Rail Commission.

The Minnesota High Speed Rail Commission strongly advocates for the development of high-speed rail line within the federally designated high-speed rail corridor that connects the Twin Cities to Milwaukee and Chicago.
- Ramsey County Commissioner Janice Rettman, chair of the Minnesota High-Speed Rail Commission

Online
User avatar
Tiller
Foshay Tower
Posts: 964
Joined: January 17th, 2015, 11:58 am

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » August 11th, 2015, 8:12 pm

If the NAHSRG turns out to be legit, because it's a private sector group with investors to answer to, would it take less time for them to go through the planning and engineering processes than it would normally take Mn/DOT or Amtrak?

I know MN/DOT has been criticised for having only 4 people dedicated to passenger rail (and thus being reliant on consultants), and that only very recently has Amtrak released the study for a 2nd daily TC - Chicago train (several years late!).

My gut says that a private company wouldn't have this kind of problem since they would actually want to get it built asap so they could begin collecting revenue, and they would actually dedicate a decent amount of resources to doing so, though I don't have anything concrete to back that opinion up. Would a private company get this done quicker?

acs
Wells Fargo Center
Posts: 1364
Joined: March 26th, 2014, 8:41 pm

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby acs » August 11th, 2015, 9:37 pm

IF this group turns out to be legit, and IF they can design, build, run and profit from an infrastructure project this quickly. It would be a pretty big FU to MnDot and pretty much any government agency that manages infrastructure to see the Chinese come in and do what they could only study and dream about. Big ifs though.

PigsEye

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby PigsEye » August 11th, 2015, 11:43 pm

That sounds pretty cool I'm glad China wants to invest in the USA and help build our rail network! Does anyone have any timelines on when they want to start construction? I hope mnDot will at least let them try if they are prove to have the funds ready to go!

mulad
Moderator
Posts: 2753
Joined: June 4th, 2012, 6:30 pm
Location: Saint Paul
Contact:

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mulad » August 12th, 2015, 6:37 am

I'd like to mention that even though Chinese investors have been mentioned as a potential partner, it sounded like they'd have a minority share of the project -- Was it about $1.2 billion out of $4 billion? They could end up being the biggest single source if it's real, but probably not the majority. We'll have to wait and see, though.

With this level of speed, I really think we'd live to regret it if we tried to slam this down the Mississippi River corridor. A service like this will have a pretty significant environmental impact wherever it goes, and it will have to skip past smaller towns. In my opinion, the Mississippi River corridor is more in need of a frequent "local" train, which would stop at least a couple times per day at most of the towns along the river, with higher service frequency at the larger towns.

The corridor has supported trains of 90+ mph in the past. It will probably be pretty difficult to get going much faster than that except in a few stretches. A little bit of 110-mph running between Hastings and Red Wing is possible, but south of there, the line curves a lot. In many spots, going faster would require building farther into the river or digging into the bluffs (and probably moving US-61 in the process).

Anyway, yes, I think a private project could get through the environmental process faster. I think the government uses the power of the purse a lot of the time to enforce these reviews, so once you are able to divorce yourself from that funding stream, things get significantly simpler. Government-sponsored studies are frequently underfunded and can't move as quickly, but there's always a limit to what private companies can do too.

From what I've seen, government studies are usually also stuck with slow decisionmaking cycles, needing to wait for a month or two in order for an issue to come up at a meeting and a course of action be determined. Under the right conditions, those cycles could be compressed to days or hours. Certainly there are businesses that move slow and the occasional government project that moves fast, but it seems to me that government groups tend to do things once a month that businesses do once a week.

PigsEye

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby PigsEye » August 12th, 2015, 5:30 pm

http://www.slideshare.net/NAHSR/nahsr-h ... gle-080815


An actual person hosted a meeting on behalf of NAHSR. Maybe she was a hologram or the pictures was photoshopped and the people in attendance were never really there? Hmm... hard to say but I guess it's still something to read.

EOst
Capella Tower
Posts: 2424
Joined: March 19th, 2014, 8:05 pm
Location: Saint Paul

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby EOst » August 12th, 2015, 6:29 pm

http://socialwendygroup.com/wendy-meadley/

Yeah this is totally legit.

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
Posts: 7752
Joined: June 19th, 2012, 2:04 pm
Location: NORI: NOrth of RIchfield

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » August 12th, 2015, 6:32 pm

Social Wendy's last Facebook post was two months ago...

Online
User avatar
Tiller
Foshay Tower
Posts: 964
Joined: January 17th, 2015, 11:58 am

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » August 12th, 2015, 7:09 pm

So will it be real once they slap DMC and Mayo(tm) across everything? I barely see any circumstantial substance either way here.

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
Posts: 7752
Joined: June 19th, 2012, 2:04 pm
Location: NORI: NOrth of RIchfield

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » August 12th, 2015, 8:01 pm

LOL. http://watchdog.org/233239/big-derail-o ... done-deal/
I still am not hearing any concrete concern about what HSR would do, especially on the US 52 corridor... which is already planned to be completely grade separated even without rail.

But something does seem strange when Wendy Meadley's LinkedIn profile is literally the sixth Google result for "North American High Speed Rail Group."

Online
User avatar
Tiller
Foshay Tower
Posts: 964
Joined: January 17th, 2015, 11:58 am

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » August 16th, 2015, 7:15 pm

An interesting article which reminded me of this thread; Some potentially helpful context about the nature of chinese investors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ch ... andom_1_na

Culture shock could be at least a partial answer to the inconsistencies we've noticed. While it was said that only a portion of the funds which would be used to build this HSR line would be chinese, they're still probably the leading investors in this. After having read this article, I'm going to re-read this thread from the beginning of these revelations on page 14, as well as the articles posted. (something I would recommend others do as well, to try and view this through less of a "consortium" lens, and more of a culture shock lens).

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
Posts: 7752
Joined: June 19th, 2012, 2:04 pm
Location: NORI: NOrth of RIchfield

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby mattaudio » August 19th, 2015, 8:08 am

- Ramsey County Commissioner Janice Rettman, chair of the Minnesota High-Speed Rail Commission
Yikes, I just made the connection. Our state HSR chair is literally the most backward anti-bike/walk Ramsey County Commissioner.

seanrichardryan
IDS Center
Posts: 4092
Joined: June 3rd, 2012, 9:33 pm
Location: Merriam Park, St. Paul

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby seanrichardryan » August 19th, 2015, 8:37 am

Image
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

bubzki2
Foshay Tower
Posts: 811
Joined: September 19th, 2012, 5:38 pm
Location: Snelling-Hamline

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby bubzki2 » August 31st, 2015, 8:28 am

Post Bulletin: High-speed rail company turns to wealthy foreign investors

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/politi ... 3a070.html

Online
User avatar
Tiller
Foshay Tower
Posts: 964
Joined: January 17th, 2015, 11:58 am

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby Tiller » August 31st, 2015, 12:45 pm

From that article:
It turns out key leaders in the North American High Speed Rail Group are also behind a new EB-5 regional center. Rail group CEO Joe Sperber and Chairman Joseph Wang are co-owners of Liberty Minnesota Regional Center, which won approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in April. These centers sponsor economic development projects people can invest in via the EB-5 program.
there are a lot of results when one googles "Liberty minnesota regional center joe sperber".

http://www.bluestemprairie.com/bluestem ... ampus.html
http://watchdog.org/233787/new-eb-5-vis ... rail-line/

more connections established here as well^.

User avatar
FISHMANPET
IDS Center
Posts: 4241
Joined: June 6th, 2012, 2:19 pm
Location: Corcoran

Re: Zip Rail and NAHSRG Rail to Rochester

Postby FISHMANPET » August 31st, 2015, 3:05 pm

So EB-5 is a way for a foreigner to basically buy US citizenship. They have to invest at least $1 million in a job creating enterprise (or invest in a Regional Center which is basically like a fund that will do the job creation) and then they get a green card. May change the calculus on the project, as investors may not be expecting to make a profit, or may even expect to lose some money in the short term or overall, if it gets them US citizenship.


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests