Amtrak: Empire Builder and Borealis (TCMC)

[COLSLAW5]

They have been letting the place go to waste for the last 5 years. Parts of the underside of the roof are falling off and i think people have broken a few of the windows into the space as well

[seanrichardryan]

Hadn't noticed but the building needed general maintenance including some roof work. Perhaps it's just asset preservation.

[Apollo]

What do they currently use it for? A crew base for Empire Builder? If it's sitting un-used and they already have a station at St. Paul Grand Central, why do they need or want to preserve the Midway station? Perhaps they are planning on using it for the second train overnight parking and base for crews? Just wondering out-loud, that wouldn't be a bad idea for Amtrak to do.

[commissioner]

What do they currently use it for? A crew base for Empire Builder? If it's sitting un-used and they already have a station at St. Paul Grand Central, why do they need or want to preserve the Midway station? Perhaps they are planning on using it for the second train overnight parking and base for crews? Just wondering out-loud, that wouldn't be a bad idea for Amtrak to do.

I believe they use it for private car storage and to couple cars to the builder if they need to. The Builder doesn't change crews in MSP, They change crews in St. Cloud and Winona..

[DanPatchToget]

According to a post on the Empire Builder Facebook group, effective July 11th the Empire Builder's schedule will be changed. The westbound departure from Chicago will be moved from 2:15 PM to 3:05 PM, and the eastbound arrival into Chicago will be moved from 3:55 PM to 4:45 PM. Assuming the travel time between St. Paul and Chicago will still be 7 hours and 55 minutes then the westbound train will now arrive in St. Paul at 11:00 PM, and the eastbound train will depart from St. Paul at 8:50 AM.

[Oreos&Milk]

I have a Fantasy Map dream of linking the Empire Builder from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis along a vacated I94 corridor. I'm not sure how to connect from Union Depot into the freeway trench, but imagine a connection near the Wabash bridge over I94 near the old Amtrak Depot. The route would then continue into Minneapolis through the Lowry Hill tunnel reaching Target Field station from the west. That would keep the Empire Builder from having to back out of Target Field Station. Now that's "Rethingking I94".

I see your fantasy map dream and RAISE YOU!

Rochester to St. Paul to Minneapolis to St. Cloud ! Hourly service! from 5AM to 10PM Weekdays and slightly reduced on weekends.

THEN I raise you AGAIN! Mankato to Minneapolis to Duluth same hourly service! ...we can brand it all under the NorthStar Rail name and it be the "Amtrak system of Minnesota!" and then we have everything we really NEED.

[mattaudio]

put those woefully underutilized northstar trainsets to use

[Trademark]

Not really a ton of news, but good to see things progressing (Also jealous of CATS Fare-capping)

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/tr ... septa-stm/

[HuskyGrad]

(Also jealous of CATS Fare-capping)

That's how things work here in Portland. If you tap twice in a day you get a day pass, if you tap 40 times in a month you earn a month pass for the rest of the month. Additionally, you can tap using your phone, watch, or debit/credit card.

https://myhopcard.com/home/

[Tiller]

With the railroad-negotiation-related service changes on Amtrak's Empire Builder, do they still have the dining car and dining car service right now? I'm going on a day trip to Chicago Nov 10th/11th.

[twincitizen]

There are a couple of public meetings next week in Winona & LaCrosse: https://www.winonapost.com/community/pu ... 0134e.html

[Silophant]

Not a hard date, but Amtrak's Fiscal Year 2022 wrap-up press release mentions that the TCMC service is anticipated to launch in FY23, which ends in September. So... ten months, probably!

[grant1simons2]

Right in time for me to move out of the country

[at40man]

What do they currently use it for? A crew base for Empire Builder? If it's sitting un-used and they already have a station at St. Paul Grand Central, why do they need or want to preserve the Midway station? Perhaps they are planning on using it for the second train overnight parking and base for crews? Just wondering out-loud, that wouldn't be a bad idea for Amtrak to do.

It's completely empty, far as I can tell it's not being used for anything but the building looks like it could easily be re-used if they so choose.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/bL58rAJmsBA[/youtube]

[COLSLAW5]

They recently just did some small work on the building as parts of the overhang and such were falling down and fixed up the parking lot a bit

[Trademark]

I don't know if people seen this but I just found this last week. FRA's Midwest passenger rail plan calls for 24 trains per day at 125 mph from St Paul-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago.

Edit: Fixed the link

https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot ... 20PDFa.pdf

[Trademark]

Capture.PNG

[grant1simons2]

https://allaboardmn.org/site/assets/fil ... nelson.pdf

[Tom H.]

Interesting to see two Republican state senators called our for rail support. Also, as a Sioux Falls native, interesting to see the Sioux Falls / Sioux City branching route receive a callout as a (relatively) high-priority route. There was always a lot of carpool oranizing for the small army of Sioux Falls kids that go to college in the Twin Cities, that would form a small constituency for a rail route.

[rhettcarlson]

https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot ... 20PDFa.pdf

Cool to see the Twin Cities projected to surpass Detroit as the second largest CBSA in the Midwest by 2055 (pg 17).