Amtrak: Empire Builder and Borealis (TCMC)

[Tom H.]

Borealis train makes its maiden voyage Tuesday from Minnesota to Chicago

Anybody attending the celebration, or riding the maiden voyage?

[MNdible]

I was reminded by this (via Fred Melo) that there is still capital work to be done along the route. Should we expect speed/reliability improvements once the work is done?

[mulad]

I'm trying to do some analysis of delays affecting Borealis trips. I don't have any insight into the freight traffic, but it looks like some of the delay is somewhat self-inflicted by Empire Builder and Borealis trains meeting. The Columbus station in particular is getting its platforms rebuilt, along with other ADA upgrades, and that appears to be at a critical spot for the westbound Borealis. It looks like Amtrak is only using one track/platform there, but they need to have both available in order for trains to pass smoothly. Otherwise, we'll need to get CPKC to add a new crossover point just west of the station.

Hopefully this will resolve once construction is done, though that's apparently months away yet. Amtrak is doing similar upgrades to stations everywhere, so I'm a bit anxious that other stops will create similar problems, but this spot is particularly troublesome since it's where two passenger trains are trying to be at the same place at the same time.

https://hizeph400.blogspot.com/2024/05/ ... us-wi.html

[Silophant]

Interesting! My spouse and I went to Chicago over the weekend and on the way back Monday we did have to wait in a siding for both the eastbound Builder and Borealis to pass, the first time before Columbus and the second before Tomah (I think). Good to know that that's (hopefully) a temporary issue.

[mulad]

Yeah, the two Borealis trips are scheduled to pass each other just east of Tomah, and there is a siding there for that to happen. The two trains need to be fairly in sync with each other, as I believe that siding is only about two miles long. If one is delayed near Tomah, it will probably cause the other to get held back by the same amount

[mattaudio]

Previous announcements made it sound like there are additional track/corridor improvements planned and funded as part of the TCMC process but not yet built. Do we know what those improvements will be?

And will they make an easier path for additional frequencies to be added with less process in the future? I'm most curious about the potential for the trainset sitting in St. Paul from 6:29 p.m. until 11:50 a.m. the next day. Hey that's enough time to do a Duluth tag with the same trainset, even with an awkward back-in from Mpls Jct to Target Field to stop in Minneapolis too...
- North/westbound, depart STP at 7:00 p.m., depart MPLS ~7:25 p.m., arrive DLH ~10:15 p.m.
- South/eastbound, depart DLH at 8:00 a.m., arrive MPLS ~10:50 a.m., arrive STP ~11:15 a.m., depart STP for CHI at 11:50 a.m.

[mulad]

WisDOT has some details on the planned track improvements. I haven't looked through all of it, but the area by La Crosse station will have rails realigned and added so it will at least appear to be triple-tracked (maybe only two from an operational perspective, since one may be for the nearby yard). Winona has a siding that appears to only be for yard access today, which will have switches replaced with high-speed versions allowing trains to properly pass each other there. There's also stuff in La Crescent to improve the yards there and tweak the approach to the Mississippi River bridge there.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/projects ... /tcmc.aspx

[mulad]

As for using the train for other services rather than having it sit in St. Paul, yeah, I think it would be good to try and use it for something, but I don't know what it would take to try and get it to Duluth at this point. I suspect the line needs significant work to be able to hit that running time, and some work needs to be done to get it consistently arriving in St. Paul on time if it's going to leave for elsewhere at 7:00 pm. But certainly using the name "Borealis" implies that they want to fold it into a Northern Lights Express service of some sort.

I've mostly been thinking of either having the train turn back and run down to Winona or La Crosse to spend the night there, then head back to St. Paul before making the noonish run to Chicago. Obviously running up to St. Cloud would be another option, though I suspect mostly sticking to the CPKC track (aside from the congested area between St. Paul and Hastings) may be easier to begin with.

[BigIdeasGuy]

Looking at rail maps it appears there is only 2 options to get from Union Depot to Duluth. The first is via MPLS, which absolutely works and has it's own benefits but has it's own set of problems and challenges. The second is what probably amounts to a full rebuild of the tracks between White Bear Lake & Hinckley that basically parallels Highway 61. That would also require a new connection between the track intersection just NE of Rice St and Woodlynn. I would be stunned if that wasn't a multiple billion dollar project, which good luck finding the political support for that.

Basically there aren't any great options to fold the Northern Lights service into the Borealis service

[Korh]

I honestly think there's not gonna be any combination between the Borealis and the NLX in the works until both have been have been in operation for awhile, If I had to rank to what's probably gonna happen in order it be:
1. NLX starts service
2. Another train is added from St. Paul to Chicago either along the same route or through Eau Clair
3. Borealis is extended to Target Field
4. Borealis is extended to Fargo
5. NLX is combined with Borealis and there's one trip from Duluth to Chicago.
6. Zip rail is revived from the dead and reaches over 100mph
7. northstar gets to st. cloud

[BikesOnFilm]

Again, re: NLX, are we stuck with running an Amtrak service at a station where there is currently no Amtrak service and requires a transfer via the Green Line to reach the rest of our Amtrak services, or is that something we can iron out during the redo of the environmental review?

I like Minneapolis and want it to have trains too, but this just seems stupid and will complicate any conversion from Borealis to NLX for no reason other than justifying the existence of Target Field Station. Both of our existing long distance trains are at SPUD, SPUD is a better layover location for anyone switching trains, why are we making this worse than it has to be?

[twincitizen]

Despite what has been shown on NLX plans for years, it does seem unlikely that Amtrak would operate trains between Duluth and Target Field Station without continuing on to SPUD. It seems more likely they will either reverse out of TFS or just skip it and go straight to SPUD like Empire Builder does. Maybe NLX could stop at Fridley Station instead of the planned Foley Station in a cost-saving move, at least then providing a stop relatively close to North/NE Mpls while still serving the inner north metro.

[MNdible]

SPUD is a beautiful station, but it's so far removed from the population center of the metro area. And while having a connection on the Green Line helps, downtown Minneapolis is undeniably the epicenter of the transit system, and this will only be more enforced once the LRT extensions open.

I'm sure we've discussed this upstream in the thread somewhere, but can't most of these trainsets now operate in a push-pull configuration? So backing out of TFS woudn't even be necessary?

[mulad]

Yeah, Amtrak surprised me with the Borealis by running it with locomotives on each end of the train -- I think we've been so accustomed to the single-ended and very long Empire Builder that we had assumed it would be a much bigger hurdle to get to Target Field and back out again, but with this setup, the engineer can just walk to the other end of the train (or they might switch crews too) while passengers are getting off/on.

[BikesOnFilm]

I don't doubt that the Borealis hardware can do it, but that just raises the question of why they didn't start the service with TFS as the terminus to begin with if it wasn't going to be a problem. You've got the trains, the tracks are there, and if population center of gravity matters that much, what's the holdup?

At that point it sounds more like a freight railroad negotiation problem.

[DanPatchToget]

SPUD is a beautiful station, but it's so far removed from the population center of the metro area. And while having a connection on the Green Line helps, downtown Minneapolis is undeniably the epicenter of the transit system, and this will only be more enforced once the LRT extensions open.

I'm sure we've discussed this upstream in the thread somewhere, but can't most of these trainsets now operate in a push-pull configuration? So backing out of TFS woudn't even be necessary?

If SPUD was out somewhere like Lake Elmo or Wayzata I'd agree, but Lowertown St. Paul is definitely not far removed.

If people can handle the trek to MSP Airport then they can handle the trek to SPUD. Unless there's an Amtrak service going west out of Minneapolis on BNSF's Wayzata Subdivision then TFS just doesn't work well for intercity rail operations that include serving SPUD. Yes there's the push-pull operations so you could serve both, but that still takes time and there's potential for conflict with BNSF's (plus TC&W and UP) operations through TFS on a single-track line.

[thespeedmccool]

The truth is that Target Field Station isn't great and that if Minneapolis wants intercity rail service they should do it right and either A) build a station in NE along the BNSF mainline and connect it to downtown with a light rail to NE or B) build a station along a new intercity rail alignment between the downtowns alongside a rethought I-94.

But, like all cities, transit in the Twin Cities has developed as a hodge podge of disconnected and unintuitive projects, and that greatly reduces the potential value of a Minneapolis intercity station. Is it worth the billions of dollars it would cost to "do it right?"

[mulad]

I mostly just wish we had a proper regional/commuter rail system here that would let people shuttle between the various options easily, and we wouldn't be debating the path to use for a single magical leftover. Historically, trains ran through in multiple different ways, and intercity buses still do that today

I had looked up the New York area recently, and Newark Penn station is around the same distance from NYP as Union Depot is from Target Field, and that gets used by lots of services. If we ever manage to build out a whole regional and high(er)-speed and standard intercity lines, it would make sense for many of them to hit both stations.

But we also don't need to say that there will just be one specific service pattern for all the different physical tracks around the area -- it would be perfectly valid for some trains to go to Minneapolis and end there (or into the suburbs and heading to other regions), or for some to skip past Target Field on the way to St. Paul. Just be glad we aren't Chicago, with four major stations all encircling the city core.

We do need to build this stuff out in phases to some extent. I believe getting a fast, reliable link between the two cities, whether at Target Field or elsewhere in Minneapolis, has always been on planners' radar, but the priorities have been to get Mpls-Duluth and St. Paul-Chicago up and running to some extent first, and then deal with the interlining problem afterward.

[BikesOnFilm]

Just be glad we aren't Chicago, with four major stations all encircling the city core.

They're looking for several billion dollars to undo this and bring as much of their rail service into Union Station as possible, so it seems more logical to just avoid this altogether.

Unless we somehow convince MNDOT to put heavy rail down the center of I-94, or Minneapolis does an about-face and builds a new intercity rail station in Northeast, there just isn't going to be fast, reliable heavy rail between both cities. Not in the near or mid term at least. Blame the poor configuration of TFS, the shortsightedness of demolishing better suited historic stations, doesn't matter. If it didn't make sense to run one daily train to Minneapolis when it is already coming all the way from Chicago, it's never going to make sense to run enough trains for people to rely on them instead of the 94 bus or the Green Line. I wish it would, but I just don't see it.

If we accept that, hopefully we can avoid kneecapping NLX from the start by terminating it at a station with no easy transfers, and we can start to build on a more active, lively SPUD to maybe claw downtown St. Paul (or at least Lowertown) back from the dead. I just fear we're going to set NLX off to a terrible start by getting attached to the idea of more passenger rail in Minneapolis, rather than thinking of the larger intercity network or what's best for the region.

Like DanPatchToGet said, it's not like people have a problem going to MSP in Bloomington. If we are ever running enough trains to SPUD where it becomes an issue, that's a great problem to have.

[Silophant]

I don't know that it makes sense to get too down on the idea of the Borealis being extended to TFS in the future just because it didn't happen right off the bat. While it wouldn't be as much work as building a new station from scratch, there is a fair amount of work involved in turning TFS into an intercity station, which didn't really mesh with the TCMC "just run an additional frequency on an existing route" pitch.

Remember that, even though it may never actually happen again, the official operating plan for Northstar is still to store five trainsets downtown all day on weekdays, and part of the NLX proposal was to add an additional platform to allow for that while still keeping it usable for the midday NLX movements. With the current setup of using just two Northstar trainsets, it would presumably be feasible to have all Northstar service use one track, and let Amtrak use the other one without having to make major modifications, but it wasn't the case when the service plans were developed. I'm hoping that MnDOT doesn't silo off the NLX plan update and the Twin Cities/St. Cloud/Fargo corridor analysis that was mandated in 2023 (to be delivered by Feb. 2025!) to the point that they don't coordinate at all, but I guess we'll see.