urbanMSP

Track work to bring the Empire Builder to Union Depot should begin "this spring or summer"; service could begin "as early as October".

http://finance-commerce.com/2013/04/amt ... ion-depot/

Finally, and they are looking at expanded service to Chicago. I love taking the train to Chicago for a long weekend. The Midway station is such a dump.

Mn/DOT held another Passenger Rail Forum meeting today, though it was purely informational (no action items, though they didn't get a quorum anyway). I listened in on the phone, and the audio quality was craptacular, so apologies for any missing or mis-heard info.

There was some discussion of what's going on with both the multi-daily-train MSP-MKE(-CHI) high-speed service and the 2nd daily train between MSP and Chicago to complement the existing Empire Builder. Right now, efforts are focused on rail traffic modeling -- gathering information from Canadian Pacific about their operations and virtually inserting either one extra 79-mph train for the 2nd daily service or an additional 6-8 110-mph trains for the HSR service. Of course, as I've mentioned before, the 79-mph 2nd train is the only thing we're likely to see for a while, since Wisconsin is not participating in the HSR study to a significant degree. Anyway, the computer modeling is intended to help determine conflict points and decide where to make improvements along the route, if I understood the discussion correctly.

The Amtrak study for the 2nd daily train should be complete by late summer or early fall 2013, while a draft EIS is planned for the MSP-MKE(-CHI) HSR corridor in summer 2014.

I'm still not sure where the Minnesota endpoint for the 2nd daily train is expected to be. There was some chatter about the fact that the computer modeling was initially set up to start an Saint Paul Union Depot, but they have acquired some additional funding to also work on modeling traffic between SPUD and The Interchange in Minneapolis.

Regarding future funding, the legislature hasn't yet decided how much money they'll allocate to rail or transit projects, but it sounds like Mn/DOT hopes to get about $2 million for the MSP-MKE(-CHI) HSR study and $3-5 million for continuing work on the 2nd daily train. There wasn't any direct mention of how much the actual implementation of the 2nd daily train will cost yet. They are trying to be "incremental and opportunistic" in the acquisition and use of funding.

I'm trying to figure out how to get to Madison by mid-afternoon for a wedding rehearsal on a Thursday in August, and I noticed that (the?) Empire Builder does not have connecting bus service from the nearest station--Columbus, WI--to Madison, but they do from Madison to the station. That's funny! Real frustrated...Megabus, Greyhound, and Jefferson Lines all get there at pretty inconvenient times. Either 4:00 AM or too late in the day to make the rehearsal. The train is supposed to get to the station at 12:50 PM, but that's reeeeeeal risky, right?

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I've had good luck finding rides on craigslist. I'm sure someone is going from Mpls. to Madison that could use help with gas.

Does the Badger Bus run during the summer? That might be another option. And, from what I hear, at least, you're right, expecting an eastbound Empire Builder to still be on time when it gets to Madison is reeeeeeal risky at the very least. It might deserve a few more "e"s than that.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has an article on potential expansion with the "second Empire Builder" and Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha line. It implies that MnDOT has decided on running the second train to Minnesota as far as St. Cloud, apparently with an intermediate stop in Fridley -- does anyone know if they've actually decided on St. Cloud as the terminus yet?

Apparently 3 (round-?)trips may be added to to the Hiawatha. They would be express trips, running about 11 minutes faster (the article also claims they would be 90-mph vs. 79 for the regular Hiawatha, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense).

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/ ... 33441.html

I recall that when Scott Walker torpedoed HSR from Minneapolis to Chicago via his fair state, he said he was still going forward with improving the Milwaukee-Chicago route, could this improvement be related to that?

Funny that they're still studying adding Hiawatha trains-- I saw the new trainsets sitting behind the Talgo plant in Milwaukee easy back in April 2011! Also, talk about a no-brainer, the existing Hiawatha trains are packed, even with the strange pricing.

Edited: forgot which topic I was in.

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/1111 ... nal-routes
Recent article that mentions possible Empire Builder expansion.

From today's Intercity Passenger Rail Forum, some updates on the 2nd daily train and the HSR corridor:

The completion date for study of a second daily train from the Twin Cities to Chicago has been pushed out until December 2013. They're working on the computer models for operational service for the train as well as ridership. Sounds like they've just now gotten the existing corridor (with proposed changes?) set up, and have been working with WisDOT to finalize the schedule for the passenger train (which is supposed to have a "complementary" schedule compared to the Empire Builder). Once they figure that out, they'll run the scheduled passenger train through the model to see if it works the way they want it to. I didn't hear of any specific endpoint for Minnesota, though I guess they've chosen to make all the same stops as the Builder between SPUD and Chicago -- no more, no less.

It sounded like they were using a different set of equipment for the starting point, potentially something like the Wisconsin Talgos which are currently mothballed. Whatever it was, they were mentioning that the end-to-end travel time would probably be closer to 7 hours than the Builder's 8-hour schedule. I didn't notice them mention a date for when service might begin with the 2nd daily train.

Also, the Tier I EIS for 110-mph HSR continues to trundle along. This has also been delayed because of extra service modeling required by the FRA. For this corridor, the modeling should be done by the end of this winter (though I've never been sure what it means when people say that), with a completion date for the whole Tier I EIS pushed to 2015. Preliminary engineering is then penciled in for 2016, with final design and construction around 2017-2018, and service happening in 2019.

I know this is planned to end at Minneapolis, Coon Rapids, or St. Cloud.

But would it ever make sense to extend this service, or create an additional service, between MSP and western North Dakota?
The airlines have definitely increased their service to places like Bismark, Williston, Dickinson, etc due to the shale boom. Seems like MN/ND could try to scrape together some unused rolling stock and run a frequency or two with better timing (although the current schedule puts Western ND - MSP in the overnight category in both directions). Seems like this could operate in the black.

The Empire Builder schedule is a complete mess. Eastbound EB on 12-11-13 was about 9 hours late. Now this..

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2013/dec/ ... rary-halt/
The freight traffic (and delays) thru Montana and ND will not be going away anytime soon.

The time is right for a daily between the cities and Chicago.

Don't they usually run dailies starting in MSP (using the proper schedule) when they have to cancel service further west? But yes, an additional frequency is important.

Yeah, there's typically a 4-5 car "Baby Builder" between Chicago and St. Paul when the service gets truncated. The Builder usually gets a few cancellations in the coldest parts of the year, since brake lines tend to freeze up (which probably caused a runaway derailment on a taconite train up in Two Harbors last week). But when cold is the problem, Amtrak tends to blame the cold. I'm not sure what the deal is with freight congestion in general -- probably some BNSF trains are having trouble with the cold, and there's been construction on the line, and there's been increased rail traffic (though I think that just means we've returned to year-2006 levels, and I think the Builder ran okay back then).

Makes me wonder how much territory out west is visible to ATCS Monitor -- I haven't tried it since it's made for Windows and I run Linux at home (it might work under Wine/Crossover, but I'm not sure).

My westbound train last Friday, which left Chicago 2 hours late, ended up sitting just outside Midway for 40 minutes while we waited for the 16-hours-behind eastbound to do their layover.

Good thing we have three platforms at Midway, so we can make one train wait outside the station for 40 minutes on the very rare occasion that we have two trains here at once.

I *try* to justify taking Amtrak when I can, but it's difficult even for a fan of rail transportation to tolerate their horrible service.

The main problems this time with the Builder is a TON of Oil (and other freight) traffic coming from North Dakota, and a lack of crews to run them. The cold doesn't help matters either nor does a single track mainline west of Minot.

The main problems this time with the Builder is a TON of Oil (and other freight) traffic coming from North Dakota, and a lack of crews to run them. The cold doesn't help matters either nor does a single track mainline west of Minot.

Must be said that more pipelines would mean fewer trains used for oil, less congestion for Amtrak.

Here's a BNSF video on the $4.3 billion they're spending this year -- the improvements in North Dakota and Montana are in the second segment, and will eventually add up to $700 million. The video says they're adding 59 miles of double-track, replacing 315 miles of existing track, and resurfacing (grinding?) another 1,900 miles. I'm not sure if those latter numbers are just this year or for the entire project. It's supposed to increase capacity on the Northern Transcon line by about 20%.