Regional Rail in Minnesota

[DanPatchToget]

I figured I'd start this thread with all the discussion and debating about regional rail in the Northstar Line thread.

The definition of regional rail could be debated forever, but for me I define regional rail as a passenger rail service operating all day in both directions on FRA-governed tracks and may operate mixed with other FRA-governed traffic (freight trains, Amtrak, etc.). Also when I think of regional rail I think of something that's more frequent but shorter distance than intercity rail, and less frequent but longer distance than light rail. However, distances, frequencies, and speeds can vary widely.

I’ve probably said my opinion on regional rail a thousand times, and I’ll say it plenty more, but for now I was curious how many communities in the Twin Cities have/had railroad-centric town centers, so I looked around on Google Maps and made a probably-incomplete list of them.

Legacy railroad-centric towns with active rail lines:
Anoka
Bayport
Chanhassen
Cologne
Farmington
Hastings
Hopkins
Lake Elmo
Lakeville
Long Lake
Maple Plain
Medina
Norwood Young America
Osseo
Rogers
Rosemount
Savage
Shakopee
St. Louis Park
Wayzata
White Bear Lake


Legacy railroad-centric towns with abandoned rail lines and right-of-way preserved:
Carver
Chaska
Excelsior
Forest Lake
Hugo
Mendota
Mound
North St. Paul
St. Bonifacius
Victoria
Watertown


Legacy railroad-centric towns with abandoned rail lines and right-of-way is not preserved:
Prior Lake
Stillwater (active track 2 miles south)
Waconia

There are of course a lot of details missing. Some town centers are minuscule, some have been swallowed up by sprawl, and some developed further and further away from the rail line through time. On the other hand there’s a significant amount of town centers that, if done right, could be a great place for a regional rail station, and there’s been newer developments near active or abandoned railroad right-of-ways that could also be good centers for a regional rail station (the Grandview area in Edina being an example). There’s also many legacy railroad-centric towns that are on the edge of or close to the 7-county region of the Twin Cities.

[Tom H.]

Sudden urge to go look at AJFroggie's old fantasy rail maps...

[thespeedmccool]

Sudden urge to go look at AJFroggie's old fantasy rail maps...

AJFroggie... Now there's a throwback. Once upon a time, we knew how to dream

[mattaudio]

He still does know how to dream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajfroggie/

[Korh]

I think an issue I see with regional rail in the state is a lot of the cities are either close enough that LRT might be better, too far that it be better suited for a intercity (or does anyone want to argue whether a service to Rochester or Mankato would be regional instead of intercity), or too small (Chicagoland might be a bad comparison but iirc every single suburb has a population above 50,000, and at least 5 not counting Chicago above 100,000).
If I had to name 2 routes that might be suited for regional rail as things stand, probably one to Lakeville though that might be a tough sell with all the stuff surrounding the danpatch line, and this might seem like a curveball but a Minneapolis - ST. Paul - Hastings - Redwing -Winona. Because one thing I think of with regional lines on the east coast is they usually run on or on tracks close to intercity services and act as slower local options (think of stuff like like NJ transit, SEPTA, and MARC) and even though it is a big if, if the momentum of the borealis is maintained and talk of expanding the line be it too target field or another daily train ends up being more then just that. There might be enough to warrant at least looking in adding to the corridor.

[Silophant]

Mankato's pretty much the same distance from downtown Minneapolis as St. Cloud is, and Rochester's only about 10 miles futher, so if an extended Northstar was still regional rail, I'd argue that Rochester and Mankato would be too.

[mattaudio]

Among other corridors, I've thought Mpls or St. Paul - (Farmington via UP? Lakeville via Dan Patch?) - Northfield - Faribault - Owatonna - (Kasson? Dodge Center?) - Rochester would be a great route on existing tracks, but with some potential trackwork needed in Owatonna.

[Multimodal]

So is commuter rail and regional rail basically the same cities and same infrastructure, except commuter rail scheduling is optimized for commuting and regional rail scheduling is optimized for living?

[Korh]

So is commuter rail and regional rail basically the same cities and same infrastructure, except commuter rail scheduling is optimized for commuting and regional rail scheduling is optimized for living?

Now that I think about it, maybe since a handful of commuter rails have switched over to more regional service. Namely Caltrains (especially with the recent electrification) and GO transit up in Canada is looking to turn it's system to an all day 2 way service with 15 minute departures.
Though this brings up another issue with the state, are they any routes that would see significant reverse travel from MSP to [enter city here] in the morning and vice versa in the evening since supposing Northstar did actually go to St. Cloud, would there have been enough demand to warrant more then one or two reverse commutes or would have it been largely the same "lion share of the trains go in to Minneapolis in the morning, leave in the evening" schedule.
If we're allowing Rochester as a regional rail, then I might change it to my most likely route since Mayo is a big draw to regardless of time of day, and depending on how many stops along they way people could as likely take a train to get there for work as they are to the twin cities.

[BigIdeasGuy]

A rail connection to Rochester needs to be viewed as the first step in a HSR line to Chicago. There should absolutely be a regional component to any line but it needs to be envisioned and built to a true HSR standard, ideally 200 MPH.

[commissioner]

A rail connection to Rochester needs to be viewed as the first step in a HSR line to Chicago. There should absolutely be a regional component to any line but it needs to be envisioned and built to a true HSR standard, ideally 200 MPH.

The problem with HSR to Rochester (great idea, don't get me wrong) is that there is no infrastructure between MSP and Rochester, making it more expensive.

[BikesOnFilm]

A rail connection to Rochester needs to be viewed as the first step in a HSR line to Chicago. There should absolutely be a regional component to any line but it needs to be envisioned and built to a true HSR standard, ideally 200 MPH.

Honestly, I'd settle for 125mph just to get things going. Build dual tracks as straight as you possibly can, build it in highway/freeway medians to keep it grade separated except near station areas, and you can upgrade to electrified 150-180mph once you prove there's a viable ridership market.

The federal government isn't going to help on something like this, and getting the stretch between Chicago and Milwaukee upgraded to 125 is going to take priority for Illinois and Wisconsin. If Minnesota wants any sort of rail connection between MSP and Rochester, it's up to us to do it ourselves, and pushing for the most expensive possible option is a great way to ensure it'll never happen.

Learn a lesson from California - mandating certain speed targets in the original proposition prevented them from pivoting away from 30+ miles of very expensive tunnels that only exist so the train would be able to travel at 220-240mph in them, a speed necessary to hit the travel time targets required for the project to follow state law. A 180mph HSR from Los Angeles to San Francisco would have been as much of a game changer as a 220mph one, especially because the former would have been easier to build.

[Korh]

*The ghost of ziprail has entered the chat

[BikesOnFilm]

Honestly the whole side quest that Edina Mayor Hovland went on trying to get funding to study a hyper loop to Rochester makes me think we are bound to repeat the Zip Rail fiasco. Trading a solid plan for a shiny object with suspect timing and feasibility worked so well the first time, I'm sure our leaders will fall for it again.

[DanPatchToget]

So is commuter rail and regional rail basically the same cities and same infrastructure, except commuter rail scheduling is optimized for commuting and regional rail scheduling is optimized for living?

I would say regional rail is optimized for diverse travel wants/needs including commuting. Cities and infrastructure may be the same for commuter rail and regional rail, but with regional rail having more trips that likely means more infrastructure (tracks) needed to support that kind of service. If Northstar were a regional service with even just 60-minute frequency midday we'd still need a third track on BNSF's mainline for a significant distance. Of course Northstar was never envisioned to be a regional rail style of service, so besides Fridley none of the stations were built with a third track in mind, so not only would there be the expense of building additional tracks but also the expense of rebuilding the stations.

A shame we didn't preserve the railroad right-of-way between Monticello and St. Cloud. I think using the Monticello Subdivision would've been better than going the cheap route with Northstar. Definitely more expensive since the whole route would need new tracks, but with the very light traffic the Monticello Subdivision has (a few trains per week) it would be way easier to have a regional rail service on that line than fixing the existing Northstar even if we had the political will today.

[Oreos&Milk]

Odd question.. what if the HSR line went faster say 400 MPH and didn't need expensive rails?

No seriously.. What about a RST to STP shuttle flight that was able to let riders get through TSA faster given they are both smaller airports and allow them still reasonable transit from each airport?

Not saying it is the final solution as I would love to see a HSR line from Rochester to St. Paul. However in the mean time why can't we push for a shuttle that enables development of the commuting corridor and start proving it's value now instead of just waiting until the slow miles of red tape are shuffled through..

Especially with the green line up and running it seems to make far more sense to have a shuttle flight to STP vs MSP given air traffic and congestion plus riders will have to still commute to either downtown anyways this way they are already in one downtown and just a simple train ride to the other one... and a short bus ride to that train but still.. it's a start with very little start up costs. Provided we spend Delta's set up costs or something like that.

[mattaudio]

Among other corridors, I've thought Mpls or St. Paul - (Farmington via UP? Lakeville via Dan Patch?) - Northfield - Faribault - Owatonna - (Kasson? Dodge Center?) - Rochester would be a great route on existing tracks, but with some potential trackwork needed in Owatonna.

ZipRail and Hyperloop and all that is the reason I think a Rochester line should just start on existing tracks via Owatonna. IMO if there was a way to upgrade existing UP/CP tracks to connect these cities within 3 hours, I think it would have a chance.

[Tom H.]

Odd question.. what if the HSR line went faster say 400 MPH and didn't need expensive rails?

No seriously.. What about a RST to STP shuttle flight that was able to let riders get through TSA faster given they are both smaller airports and allow them still reasonable transit from each airport?

Not saying it is the final solution as I would love to see a HSR line from Rochester to St. Paul. However in the mean time why can't we push for a shuttle that enables development of the commuting corridor and start proving it's value now instead of just waiting until the slow miles of red tape are shuffled through..

Especially with the green line up and running it seems to make far more sense to have a shuttle flight to STP vs MSP given air traffic and congestion plus riders will have to still commute to either downtown anyways this way they are already in one downtown and just a simple train ride to the other one... and a short bus ride to that train but still.. it's a start with very little start up costs. Provided we spend Delta's set up costs or something like that.

I'm not sure I'm understanding the proposal here... You state that, if we just "let riders get through TSA faster", plus pay "Delta's set up costs", then it's effectively a 400 MPH transit line.

I can't speak to what costs travellers would have to pay for the privilege of doing an air-commute to either StP or MSP from Rochester, but I have to imagine it would be high. Others can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have a great understanding of flight cost structures.

The main issues are that: (a) it's an incredibly inefficient and polluting "transit" mode; (b) I think your premise of "just make TSA faster" is wishful thinking; and (c) neither MSP or StP are really viable endpoints if the goal is workplace commuting. It just doesn't hit the bullseye of job density that a trip direclty into DT Minneapolis would provide. You either need to take a 30+ minute LRT ride, or rent a car for the final leg. It's hard to see how that's really on-net faster and/or cheaper than a 90-minute vanpool.

[BikesOnFilm]

Odd question.. what if the HSR line went faster say 400 MPH and didn't need expensive rails?

No seriously.. What about a RST to STP shuttle flight that was able to let riders get through TSA faster given they are both smaller airports and allow them still reasonable transit from each airport?

So a publicly subsidized, regularly scheduled charter flight.

I will say this - it would make a high speed rail line look a lot better on a balance sheet if you were paying for two charter flights a day indefinitely. Literally anything would be cheaper than that.