 |
| Screenshot of my map of rail traffic data highlighting the 4th Ave crossing in Anoka, where BNSF reported 26 daily trains in 2022, which I estimated probably came from 21 freight trains, two Amtrak Empire Builder trains, and daily average of 3 trips of COVID-restricted Northstar trains |
The Northstar commuter train service between Minneapolis and Big Lake is in a precarious position, with Metro Transit apparently planning to end operation and change over to bus service due to continuing political machinations that have stained the route since the beginning. This would set a disastrous precedent, undermining any plans for future rail expansion in our region at a time when improving transit service is critical for our climate mitigation strategies.
Despite headlines over the years decrying low overall ridership, I firmly believe Northstar has performed admirably when considering its harshly-limited schedule and relatively short distance. Its trains have carried more passengers per trip than most peer systems, indicating demand for expansion rather than contraction of service. And, while most commuter systems have fully restored or expanded service hours since COVID, Northstar's schedule was cut more deeply and for a longer period than other parts of the country—a full restoration of its original sparse schedule has not even been attempted yet, making it virtually impossible to increase passenger counts to pre-COVID figures, let alone the virtually unreachable figures that were staked out as goalposts for expanding to St. Cloud.
One huge hurdle for Northstar has been the apparent difficulty to operate and expand service alongside the host railroad, BNSF Railway. Back in 2009 when Northstar began operating, BNSF was reporting high numbers of freight trains each day over the Staples Subdivision that Northstar uses, and, like with traffic projections for highways, the assumption was that rail traffic would continue to increase. This led to leading to relatively high costs for initially starting up Northstar and paying for track access. However, according to publicly available data, it appears freight rail traffic has dropped dramatically since Northstar trans first began running, and MnDOT appears to be either unaware or unwilling to admit that conditions have likely improved for adding more passenger trains rather than worsened.
Back in April 2009, MnDOT produced a map of rail traffic in the Twin Cities region suggesting that 63 trains per day moved through northeast Minneapolis, with about 12 splitting off at Coon Creek junction in Coon Rapids to go to Duluth and 46 running northwest along the Northstar route (there is not a clear reason why the two branches only add to 58 instead of 63—possibly due to the route segments using data from different years).
 |
| MnDOT's 2009 rail map with reported train traffic of the time, retrieved via The Internet Archive. |
MnDOT's new Rail Viewer Application, available through their freight maps page, suggests far lower rail volumes in recent years, with the most recent figures from 2023 showing 29 daily trains between Minneapolis and the split in Coon Rapids, with just 3 trains to and from Duluth and about 25 continuing on the Northstar route—a collapse of three-quarters for Duluth traffic since 2009, and about half on the main corridor.
I spent time looking through the FRA's grade crossing safety map last year to pull out the information I could, and I had found similar numbers from year 2021 and 2022 reports. There were also remnants of older information from 2019 when Northstar was operating with a full schedule. The 2019 data already showed a substantial decline from 2009, with about 42 combined freight an passenger trains using the tracks between Northtown rail yard and the Coon Creek junction, 6 freights running on the line to Duluth and 36 freight+passenger trains continuing northwest (this time nicely adding up to 42).
In 2019, Northstar's weekday schedule had 12 train trips (6 round-trips) and 6 trips (3 round-trips) each on Saturday and Sunday, for 72 per week, plus some extras added in for certain Twins and Vikings games and other events in downtown Minneapolis. That collapsed to 20 weekly trips from COVID lockdowns early in 2020, with just 4 weekday trips (2 round-trips) and no weekend or special event service—a condition that largely remained until October 2023 when scheduled service doubled and there were 40 weekly baseline trips (8 weekday drips / 4 round-trips) and an increase in special event service, although still only representing about 55% of the pre-COVID schedule.
| 2009 | 2019 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northtown to Coon Creek | 63 | 42 | 29 |
| Coon Creek to Big Lake | 46 | 36 | 25 |
| Coon Creek to Duluth | 12 | 6 | 3 |
| 2009 | 2019 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northtown to Coon Creek | 2 | 12 | 5 |
| Coon Creek to Big Lake | 2 | 12 | 5 |
| Coon Creek to Duluth | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2009 | 2019 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northtown to Coon Creek | 61 | 30 | 24 |
| Coon Creek to Big Lake | 44 | 24 | 20 |
| Coon Creek to Duluth | 12 | 6 | 3 |
The Minnesota Legislature has directed MnDOT to study extending Northstar to St. Cloud twice, in 2019 and 2023 (click the "Studies" section at the bottom of this page to see them), along with an intervening post-COVID service study. The results of the second extension study seem to reflect an alternate reality that makes me strongly question MnDOT's ability to do any substantial rail-related projects, especially considering their cost estimates ballooned massively over what the previous iteration reported.
When I talked to people who worked on the newest study at public meetings, they repeated the old traffic figures of 60+ trains per day despite recent data showing much lower numbers. (I believe this was repeated during their presentation to All Aboard Minnesota late last year, though I haven't found the specific spot in AAMN's video of the meeting.) The study also presented obscenely slow construction timelines, with a first phase of just four daily trains (two round-trips) taking until 2036 to be completed, and full service taking until 2040.
This is such an upside-down result that it feels like MnDOT took a malicious compliance approach to the recent extension study. While rail service is certainly more expensive to implement than I would like it to be, and there has been a lot of cost inflation since 2009, it's extremely hard to believe that infrastructure costs need to be any more than around $50 million to expand the existing St. Cloud Amtrak station and add one or two others. The biggest costs would probably be arranging for track access, but given the apparent drop in traffic, it should be much cheaper in relative terms today than it was back in the late 2000s.
BNSF had even added a second track in a critical section just northwest of Big Lake station several years ago, along with added track up around Little Falls (beyond St. Cloud), so the route is fully double-tracked from the Twin Cities to Fargo.
This drop in traffic also means it should be simpler and cheaper to improve the Hinckley Subdivision that would carry Northern Lights Express trains to Duluth, a route that is mostly single-tracked with occasional sidings for trains to pass each other. If freight traffic has really dropped to only about three trains per day, then the need for additional track to add or extend sidings is dramatically reduced as well. The NLX route still needs a huge amount of investment to improve track conditions, rebuild bridges, and add proper signaling infrastructure, but it would lead to many tens of millions of dollars in cost savings.
It doesn't make sense to me to cut Northstar. Even with its low recent ridership, about 15 to 20 daily bus trips would be necessary to provide service for all of those passengers. When Northstar was at its best, it was carrying over 400 passengers per hour—the only problem being that it only operated for a few hours each day. Is Northstar going to be replaced with a bus service operating every 5 minutes to match that level of demand? I can guarantee that none of Northstar's critics will seriously propose that.
