2nd rail line through Wisconsin gaining steam

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By Janice Bitters
Dolan Media Newswires

A second conventional-speed train between St. Paul, Minn., and Chicago could be up and running by 2020, Minnesota officials say.

The new line would run along the same tracks as the existing Amtrak Empire Builder train, which already goes through Wisconsin on its way between the two cities.

A second line would add to the already busy route’s capacity, bring even more attention to the historic and recently renovated Union Depot in St. Paul, Minn., and attract new visitors to the rapidly changing Lowertown neighborhood, said Matt Kramer, president of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s people coming to St. Paul to get on the train to go to Chicago, but it’s also people from Chicago coming into the Twin Cities,” he said. “When they arrive at Union Depot, more people equals more opportunity. It’s really simple math.”

Currently, the Empire Builder is the only passenger rail line that runs from St. Paul to Chicago. The line often sees more than 100,000 rides annually, according to a study released by MnDOT and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, which are working together on the project.

But the Amtrak route, which starts in Seattle, Wash., sometimes gets delayed ahead of its stop in the Twin Cities, said Dan Krom, director of MnDOT’s passenger rail office. The new train would avoid those delays.

“When the (second) train heads east, it will have a lot better on-time reliability because it will start in St. Paul,” Krom said.

Traveling about 80 miles an hour, the second daily trip would take six hours — the same amount of time as driving the route.

About $95 million in infrastructure improvements would be needed to the route before the second train could start running, according to the study. But the federal government could cover 80 percent of that cost, Krom said.

The new line is expected to provide 155,500 rides a year when it opens, which could be as early as 2020, Krom said. Whereas new train cars and locomotives would cost more than $46 million, that cost could be avoided if Amtrak vehicles were available for use.

After the initial start, MnDOT will consider expanding the corridor to Target Field Station in Minneapolis and St. Cloud, according to the study.

The train is a precursor to another, much bigger, MnDOT study on a high-speed passenger rail line connecting the Twin Cities to Chicago. That line would convey as many as six trains a day traveling at speeds up to 110 miles-per-hour.

“We look at it a bit as the interim step to getting to the higher speed service,” Krom said. “The idea is to get a second frequency to grow the market a little more.”

Minnesota will continue looking at high-speed rail, even though across the state line in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker’s skepticism of such a project was a centerpiece of his successful 2010 election campaign. Walker’s resistance eventually led federal officials, shortly after his election, to rescind their offer to put $810 million toward a high-speed rail line, a decision that nixed the project at the time.

But Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, who also chairs the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority board, is optimistic that Wisconsin officials will change their stance in the future.

“I think eventually we are all going to be on the same page because the need to get folks back and forth is only getting greater,” he said.

In the meantime, Walker’s administration is contributing to the study for a second daily line at lower speeds, making the line more likely to happen.

“I think this passenger rail (line) is imminent,” Ortega said.

Currently, the two state agencies are working on the first phase of a two-part environmental study expected to cost between $850,000 and $1.25 million.

Earlier this year, WisDOT and the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority contributed $300,000 to pay for the study. The Minnesota High-Speed Rail Commission committed $50,000 while the La Crosse Area Planning Committee gave $10,000. In all, the agencies contributed $660,000.

Although the study isn’t yet fully funded, environmental work has started. A full analysis is expected to be approved in 2017.