Saint Paul Union Depot

[mulad]

The roads are open in the area for now. I've been ready to rag on somebody for being biased against transit with the preemptive rerouting of the 21, 54, 65, etc., but the thought occurred to that they probably dusted off an old route that existed before the Union Depot was operating.

I saw a Megabus waiting on Sibley next to the headhouse, and a 3-car LRV was parked out front.

[PhilmerPhil]

Will the event be livestreamed anywhere?

[mulad]

I know it's supposed to appear here, but not sure about anywhere else: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

[at40man]

I don't really trust much of anything our President says anymore, but I would like to see the recording of this speech!

[mamundsen]

His 20 min speech can been seen here:

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2014 ... php?page=3

[at40man]

Greyhound is now moving in to St Paul Union Depot as well: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... nion-depot

[FISHMANPET]

Thank God. Express service was just screaming for trips to depart out of the Depot. I wonder if these will be brand new Express routes, or just a stop on the Express routes out of Minneapolis? Either way, when the Green Line opens, I'd much rather take the train from downtown Minneapolis to SPUD to catch a bus than sit on the floor at Hawthorne terminal.

[Silophant]

Great to see more services move into SPUD. Has anyone heard anything about whether Amtrak is actually coming or not?

[mulad]

There's a signed contract with Amtrak at this point, so they are coming, but the date is frustratingly unclear. Ordinarily, February would have been ideal, since that's when Amtrak has their lowest passenger counts, but of course we had crappy weather.

[nstudenski]

Originally it was set for February but recently I've been reading "later this year."

[commissioner]

It pretty much depends on when BNSF activates the signals on the east side of the depot.

[mulad]

I took a peek at things from the Robert Street bridge yesterday evening. I think there were only two signal heads still pointing sideways along the track leading to the depot, indicating they weren't working yet. There was also a set of signals turned sideways on the north end of the lift bridge, so there may be some coordination with Union Pacific that still has to happen.

I didn't try looking on the east end of the depot area. I suppose it might be easier to see things now that the railfan park exists, but I'm not sure.

[at40man]

I rode on the Empire Builder last week. To the east of the Depot there is still some work to be done. I observed the new signaling equipment, much of which had the signals turned sideways. One of the large new signal masts going over the full span of tracks was also not ready yet and sitting directly behind the currently active old signaling mast.

[mattaudio]

On the Staples Sub, it felt like it was nearly a year before the replacement signals were used. Maybe there's more to it than installing and wiring them.

[talindsay]

Finally saw the inside of the union depot this morning since it was used as the start and finish area for a half marathon. It's beautiful, very well done. It looks like the parts on the concourse that are actually set up are the ones at the far end, for Amtrak, and a single "gate" at the near end for "all transit". Hopefully that changes some time soon.

It does point to the desperate under utilization of this facility currently that they can use the main concourse as a race venue without disrupting operations.

[mulad]

Unfortunately, I'm hearing late April or perhaps early May for the Amtrak move at this point. That's from someone in a local train group who had been the first to mention to me that they wouldn't be able to get things done by the end of last year.

National Train Day is May 10th this year, so one would hope they'll be able to be ready for that.

[mulad]

Amtrak planning to begin service at Union Depot on May 7th, with National Train Day activities to follow on the 10th.

http://www.uniondepot.org/union-depot-o ... lebration/

[Silophant]

Freaking finally.

[maxbaby]

Is it really possible to have only 7-8 minutes between arrival and departure times? How do you get luggage unloaded and loaded and people situated in their seats in that little amount of time?

[mulad]

Hmm. Yes, it's possible to get a lot of people on and off of the train in that amount of time, since there is one door for each train car. The train only stays a couple of minutes at smaller stops along the route.

But that brings up a good point: The Empire Builder is currently scheduled for a 45-minute stop at Midway, which they use to couple/decouple the extra 807/808 car which is added to the train between Chicago and Saint Paul. A short stop at Union Depot means that they'll still be adding/removing that extra car at Midway (unless they're thinking of ditching that movement entirely because of the temporary schedule changes to deal with freight congestion). I've heard that the Minnesota Commercial still has the contract to do that job, but I don't know how long the term is on it. Someday, the Union Depot will probably need to get their own switching locomotive to handle that job, but that likely won't happen until there's more than one train per day per direction.