Rail advocacy in an uncertain 2025

A map of preferred routes from the FRA Long-Distance Service Study, notably only covering routes over 750 miles in length (shorter routes would be covered by other programs)

I don't know exactly what the future holds for us in 2025, but it's going to be a challenging year. I think one of the best pieces of advice for our time is to find things that you're passionate about and use your knowledge and skills to try to make those things better. It's also best to find existing organizations with missions that align with your goals, rather than starting from scratch.

Since passenger rail has been overlooked and under-funded by state and federal governments for many decades, many advocacy organizations have already sprouted up around the country out of necessity. While trains are a couple steps removed from what I broadly think are the highest priorities for advocacy in the years ahead, I do think passenger rail is essential for keeping communities connected to each other and building climate and transportation resiliency.

Nationally, two great organizations are the Rail Passengers Association and the High Speed Rail Alliance, which both have a good online presence, including having YouTube video channels that make it much easier to share information about how essential rail service is, along with ideas on how to build up a better system.

The RPA's YouTube channel includes many brief videos giving quick updates and station visit summaries, mixed in with a number of in-depth webinars and conference lectures. The HSRA's YouTube videos are mostly long-form conversations. True to their name, the High Speed Rail Alliance has more of a focus on fast trains, and taking lessons from HSR systems around the world, but like me, they believe in an "integrated network approach" where fast, frequent trains would form a backbone feeding into medium- and standard-speed train routes along with intercity buses and local transit. Both organizations are still deeply interested in what's achievable with conventional rail, and ways of making that better even as we hope for a future with a strong upper service tier.

Locally, I have most closely followed the work of All Aboard Minnesota, which has a fairly expansive vision of rail service in the state, but has most recently been focused on getting the Borealis service going on the St. Paul–Milwaukee–Chicago corridor, including a westward extension to Fargo and additional trips to Chicago. AAMN's YouTube presence is more limited, mostly including videos of annual meetings. They actively recruit new members at events like Union Depot Train Days, and have done their own independent studies of rail routes so they can more effectively push for proper levels of investment in the lines that would see additional train trips.

I should also mention some of the governmental and quasi-governmental entities. Right now, the most notable is probably the Great River Rail Commission, a joint powers board of cities along the Mississippi River from St. Paul down to La Crosse. I do have a bit of a sour taste in my mouth from them since I had hoped for a high-speed rail option that went through Rochester rather than along the river when options were being studied a decade ago, but they are an important entity for pushing for better Amtrak service on the existing corridor.

Similarly, I hope people find ways to get involved with the Northern Lights Express Alliance for the NLX line from Minneapolis to Duluth, since the expiration of environmental review documentation has more or less reset the clock on that route, even though it's received its necessary local-match funding to be built. Some of the NLX Alliance's role has theoretically shifted over to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, but they still seem to be too reliant on outside consultants for work on this line. I hope we can strengthen MnDOT's in-house skillset for designing and building rail projects, along with more rigorous oversight of consultants and contractors when needed.

The Northstar commuter line needs some strong advocacy behind it again too, since it has been a political target from before it was even built, and has suffered from lackluster local government support, especially during COVID cuts. I understand it's still overseen by the Northstar Corridor Development Authority, though they appear to lack any specific web presence anymore. The line needs its full schedule restored and/or to be extended to St. Cloud. Consultants have come back with cost estimates that don't quite pass my smell test.

To the east, the Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers has been an important partner for getting the Borealis to move forward, along with keeping track of updates since the service started. They have a good base of support from travelers on the Hiawatha service between Milwaukee and Chicago, and would like to see the state of Wisconsin follow through on their plans for expanding rail service to Eau Claire, Madison, and Green Bay via Oshkosh. Hopefully those can actually happen and not merely be lines on a map.

To our west, there has been quite a lot of work done by the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority to push for restored train service in the southern tier of Montana that was last used by Amtrak's North Coast Hiawatha in 1979. It would run straight west from Fargo and through North Dakota's capital Bismarck before running through Montana's more populated southern tier, and then rejoining the Empire Builder's route to the west coast.

Lastly, I'll mention The Rio Grande Plan in Utah, an ambitious proposal to rebuild tracks in Salt Lake City so they would use the historic Rio Grande station there rather than the current industrial zone. It importantly combines a vision to improve connectivity for rail passengers with a plan to open up land currently wasted by poorly-located rail and highway infrastructure for development. This could mean a lot more housing, cleaner air, and more efficient trips for people on trains and using local streets that are susceptible to being blocked by freight traffic.

There are many other organizations throughout the country that are worthy of support, so hopefully no matter where you are, you can find one that fits your particular routes of interest. The Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor ID Program and Long-Distance Service Study have shown that there's a huge appetite for passenger train service across the country, and that there are many communities, organizations, and individuals who are interested in creating a full-fledged network rather than the extremely skeletal service Amtrak offers today.

Our state and federal transportation (highway) departments have done us all a great disservice over the last several decades by skimping on passenger rail investment. It's unfortunate that we had to wait until federal agencies were empowered by programs like Corridor ID for this sort of planning to actually happen, especially since organizations such as AASHTO have facilitated cross-state highway work for more than a century. So many important rail corridors cross state lines that it's essential to at least look at multi-state regions rather than stopping planning within individual state borders. That's a role which I'm sure is at risk, so we'll have to push for continued interstate coordination in any ways we can.

A huge frustration with passenger rail advocacy is that it takes years or decades for projects to finally become reality. In a way, that's an asset in times like these where the immediate future is the most uncertain. The time scale of building infrastructure means that we're forced to take the long view. There will be smaller-scale things to push for, such as simple service quality improvements on existing trains, but added service on existing or new/restored routes is a future worth investing in, even if the path to that future date is uncertain.

 

Political routes: Along the river

A map of Minnesota Legislature districts in the southern two-thirds of the state

Since most political coverage leaves everyone endlessly spinning these days, I felt I should give the route of the new Borealis service (a path shared by the Empire Builder) the same treatment that I did for my previous article state following the routes of Amtrak, Northstar, and the future Northern Lights Express northwest toward St. Cloud / Fargo and north to Duluth, in order to help pull focus away from the usual political centers of gravity. The Borealis has been an instant success, and proves there's strong latent demand for intercity train service that's more frequent and more reliable, enhancing the ability to connect above and beyond what a single daily long-distance route can offer.

It's worth looking southeast along the route to see if there are offices where we can grow support for more service like this. While local transit gets the most focus among urbanists and city planners, I think supporting intercity links is an essential next step for rebuilding a system where people can live a more car-lite lifestyle.

Services like the Empire Builder and Borealis help bridge the urban-rural divide by connecting cities large and small together, and let people travel who would otherwise be unable to. Rail lines bring in people from many different places and backgrounds, and really helps foster the sense that we're all in this together, rather than the everyone-for-themselves mentality of traffic-clogged freeways.

Unfortunately, we've seen decades of obstruction from the Republican side of the aisle in our region and at the national level, either actively undermining support for train service, or slow-walking things so much that it hardly makes a difference. Democratic politicians (Democratic-Farmer-Labor in Minnesota) are doing far more of the heavy lifting on that front at the moment.

The Republican wave of 2010 tore through hopes of building a whole set of 110-mph routes around the country, including the 6 to 8 daily round-trips that were planned along this corridor. Today, House Republicans are trying to cut Amtrak funding again, and wiping out funding for new transit projects is on their wishlist if they attain full control of government.

Here in Minnesota, it took a DFL trifecta of holding the governorship and both houses of the legislature before the Northern Lights Express and the long-planned Borealis (a bit of a consolation prize after 110-mph plans were shelved) finally gained funding. Republican obstruction of any meaningful funding means the Borealis was at least a dozen years overdue, and we'll still be waiting for the NLX for several more years.

There are certainly some conservative politicians out there who see investing and enhancing this long-standing rail infrastructure as the fiscally and environmentally responsible thing to do, especially when it has high latent but unused capacity, but there are far fewer of them than there should be. When combined with other policies that are sowing division and tearing down the nation's fundamental principles right now, I can't in good conscience lend support to that side of the aisle, so I'll again be focusing on DFL candidates below.

Due to time limitations, I'm focusing again on Minnesota and U.S. House races, but please also take time to investigate county, city council, and other local races where you can. Easily look up a sample ballot via the Secretary of State.

Minnesota House districts

From St. Paul southeast along the river to La Crescent, we have Minnesota House districts 65B, 67B, 53B, 41B, 58B, 20A, 20B, 26A, and 26B. The districts in St. Paul, the inner suburbs, and Winona lean Democratic, while others have most recently had Republican legislators.

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
65B	St. Paul (station)	DFL	Maria Isa Pérez-Vega	Maria Isa Pérez-Vega	57.2%
67B¹	St. Paul	DFL	Jay Xiong	Jay Xiong	50.5%
53B¹	Newport, South St. Paul, Inver Grove Heights, Cottage Grove	DFL	Rick Hansen	Rick Hansen	8.8% to 15.1%
41B¹	Cottage Grove, Hastings	R	Shane Hudella²	Jen Fox	-2.1%
58B¹	Farmington, Hampton, Randolph	R	Pat Garofalo²	Ian English	-24.9%
20A	Red Wing (station), Lake City, Cannon Falls, Wabasha	R	Pam Altendorf	Heather Arndt	-3.7% to -14.2%
20B¹	Kellogg, St. Charles, Pine Island, Zumbrota	R	Steven Jacob	Michael Hutchinson	-32.3%
26A	Winona (station), Lewiston	DFL	Gene Pelowski, Jr.²	Sarah Kruger / Dwayne Voegeli³	10.2%
26B¹	La Crescent	R	Greg Davids	Allie Wolf⁴ / Eric Leitzen	-89.4%

¹District is along the rail line, but does not have stations
²Incumbents are retiring in districts 41B, 58B, and 26A
³No endorsement occurred in district 26A
⁴Allie Wolf is the endorsed candidate in 26B

In the first three districts, the incumbent DFLers are running again. District 65B represented by Maria Isa Pérez-Vega is home to St. Paul Union Depot, which could really use more trains to make it a more bustling place. Rails run through district 67B represented by Jay Xiong, although the potential for improved train service there is limited since the population is away from the rail line itself. This area will probably only ever see new train stations if the Red Rock Corridor is ever properly revived. (Quick Red Rock take: Transit often works best where there's a geographic constraint in the way, like a big river, and it's easy to feel that limitation in the area when driving down U.S. 61).

Rick Hansen's opposition in 2022 included a third-party candidate, so the lean of district 53B is a little bit up in the air. Cottage Grove had been floated as a potential intercity rail stop when 110-mph service was being discussed up until 2010–2011, and the area has potential for multiple stops if commuter/regional rail services start up on the line. If you have resources, helping Hansen keep his seat would be a good move.

District 41B had a narrow margin in 2022, and the current office-holder is retiring, so it's worth throwing some support behind Jen Fox to try and get her into office. This district covers another part of Cottage Grove, plus Hastings (where Fox is on the city council) is also a very good potential new stop, whether from Amtrak or on a commuter/regional rail line

The next district down, 58B, is probably difficult to pick up, but I hope Ian English gets a good shot at it, since Pat Garofalo is retiring. As a reminder of how many people have been misled by promises of technology that has yet to arrive, Garofalo had boasted about Tesla's self-driving capabilities way back in 2015 and used that as a cudgel against funding for transit projects. Nine years later, self-driving still has a long way to go, with cars still stymied by rain, snow, fog, and oddly, trains. One person almost rammed into the side of a moving one recently when the car was self-driving, while another got their Tesla to serve briefly as a rail vehicle when it inadvertently veered onto tracks at a low-angle crossing. I found a third set of bizarre interactions when looking for links to those.

Only a small part of 58B runs along the current Amtrak route, without any towns to serve as stops. However, I'd love to see that district flip since it's an area that could benefit from future suburban Twin Cities stations if new ones are added on the Amtrak route, if the Zip Rail corridor down to Rochester ever resumes planning, or if the Dan Patch line or other services southward from the Twin Cities pick up steam, since the western part of the district wraps around Northfield.

Red Wing is the largest city in district 20A, and has one of the existing stations on the line. It had been looked at as an endpoint for Red Rock commuter rail, and is likely to remain a stop on any future Amtrak service. Lake City has grown to over 5,000 people and is a strong candidate for another stop on either Amtrak or a commuter/regional route, and Wabasha is a bit smaller but is an appealing potential stop since it has a bridge across the river to Wisconsin. A third-party candidate ran in 2022 who took 10.5% of the vote, so Heather Arndt has a good chance to win.

District 20B is much more rural than the others so far. Kellogg is the biggest city on the route in the district, but it has less than 500 people, and is only about 6 miles from Wabasha. Other parts of the district might have other opportunities someday. I'd love to see passenger service on the DM&E / CPKC line that runs from Winona through Rochester and westward, which runs the district's biggest city of St. Charles. If Zip Rail ever comes back, I'd love to see Pine Island or Zumbrota get some slower local service someday, though it's more likely people would need to go a bit outside the district to reach stations in cities just outside its boundaries if services manage to grow. Michael Hutchinson is up for a challenge to be able to win the seat, but it would be nice if that can happen.

District 26A is centered around Winona, which has a station, and is currently the only DFL-held district along the tracks outside of the Twin Cities. Due to candidates being unable to reach the 60% threshold needed for endorsement in the party caucuses earlier this year, Sarah Kruger and Dwayne Voegeli are facing each other in the primary election, and I don't know who specifically to root for there. Early voting and vote-by-mail is happening now, and election day is August 13th. Winona has been the 2nd-busiest Amtrak stop in Minnesota after St. Paul, and of course would benefit from more trains per day.

The last state House district here is District 26B, which is the most rural. There wasn't a DFL candidate in the district in 2022, so it's hard to say how exactly how strong the political leanings are. The largest city appears to be La Crescent, across the river from La Crosse, with about 5,300 people. It's included in the La Crosse bus system, so added Amtrak service directly helps residents there. The western part of the district is south of Rochester, so anything that ever reaches that city would be the nearest option for people there. Allie Wolf is the endorsed DFL candidate here, and is likely to win the primary, although I feel like Eric Leitzen has a more fully-fledged campaign platform, even if it's just a set of bullet points on a simple Wordpress blog.

A map of routes included in the 2010 Minnesota Rail Plan, which is well behind schedule. There have been some modifications made in later versions, but goals have remained similar overall.

U.S. House districts

The Amtrak route toward Chicago runs through U.S. House districts 4, 2, and 1.

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
4	St. Paul (station), Woodbury, Maplewood, Roseville, Oakdale	DFL	Betty McCollum	Betty McCollum	35.3%
2	Lakeville, Eagan, Burnsville, Cottage Grove, Hastings	DFL	Angie Craig	Angie Craig / Marc Ives	2.0 to 5.3%
1	Red Wing (station), Winona (station), Rochester, Mankato, Owatonna	R	Brad Finstad	Rachel Bohman	-7.6% to -11.5%

Congressional District 4 includes St. Paul and a number of nearby suburbs. St. Paul Union Depot is a great resource, but it's deeply under-utilized, and should be a hub for many more trains. Betty McCollum is certain to win again, although I hope she's beginning to look at retiring to let someone new fill the seat in a few years, since she's been in office since 2001. It's a solid DFL district.

District 2 doesn't have any train stations, but has a number of opportunities if routes in the Minnesota State Rail Plan can get proper support to be studied and built in a timely manner. Additional service on the Amtrak route, southeast to Rochester, south toward Northfield/Owatonna/Des Moines, and southwest along the Mninesota River valley would all bring new stops to the region. Angie Craig is the endorsed candidate here, but I have to include Marc Ives as an option for the primary since he provides a relief valve for the angst around the Israel–Gaza war, and the utter lack of proportionality in response to the attack that set it off. But no, we would not be better off with either of her current Republican challengers in that seat, who both appear to be happier to punch down rather than up. This district is heavily targeted by outside groups, and will need support.

Finally, Rachel Bohman is running in the huge 1st Congressional District, which extends all the way across the southern end of the state to the border with South Dakota. It's home to the current Red Wing and Winona stations, and should someday have stations in Rochester, Owatonna, Mankato, and other cities along routes running south and southwest from the Twin Cities. This district has had similar geography through many election cycles, and has flipped between parties multiple times. Hopefully Rachel Bohman can gain the support she needs to flip it again.

Well, that's another one of these done. I wish I didn't have to write articles like this, but we're in a pretty dire situation if we don't have more people looking upward and forward to a better future. The Minnesota Department of Transportation funnels around $4.5 billion per year into streets, highways, and related activity, and support for rail—especially beyond the core of the Twin Cities—has been a faint shadow of that. Rebuilding the lost legacy of train travel that helped put cities on the map around here in the first place really should be on the path toward getting us out of our current divisive times.

Columbus update: Trains now using both tracks

The Amtrak station in Columbus, Wisconsin. From Wikimedia user Downspec, CC-BY-SA

We have a welcome update to my previous article about train conflicts around the Columbus, Wisconsin station. Over the weekend, photos and videos were captured of an eastbound Borealis train at Columbus station at the same time as a westbound Empire Builder, meaning that construction of new ADA-compliant platforms has progressed far enough for both tracks to be usable there. This is good news, as the two trains are scheduled to meet each other at or very close to the Columbus station.

Time vs. distance plot of trains in the corridor, showing the eastbound Empire Builder (first long line angling down and to the right) and westbound Borealis (first long line angling upward) cross each other near "CBS," the station in Columbus, WI.

The Borealis (no. 1333) is intended to depart Columbus at 1:41 pm, while the Empire Builder (no. 8) is scheduled for 1:47 pm. Ideally, they would pass each other slightly west of the station, but due to the track layout in the area, if only one set of rails is usable, the nearest point to the west where trains can pass is about 18 miles away in Wyocena, WI. In practice, it looks like it's been more common for the Borealis to wait at the nearest crossover point east of Columbus, which is about 6 miles away from the station.

I haven't been able to do enough analysis of train positions over time to say exactly how much this will improve on-time performance of the Borealis, since freight traffic west of Milwaukee station often adds delays as well, but if the Empire Builder was running on time, it could cause delays of 15 to 20 minutes for the other train.

Hopefully we'll start seeing better reliability for the westbound train soon, at least as long as they can depart Chicago and Milwaukee in a timely manner (yesterday's train had mechanical trouble meaning it left Chicago three hours late, which is the third time since service began that train 1333 had a delay of over two hours leaving Chicago).

Post from Bruce Schwierske in the "Amtrak's Borealis Train" Facebook group showing the two trains at Columbus station (link)

Borealis ridership increased in June 2024

A Borealis train taking on passengers at St. Paul Union Depot

Amtrak's Borealis posted a slight increase in ridership in June, going (with rounding) from 605 daily passengers for the first week and a half in May to 619 daily passengers last month, according to data obtained from WisDOT by the Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers (WisARP). Nearly all of the increase was in the eastbound direction, which went up by 13 daily riders, while westbound went up by 1 additional passenger per day.

	1333 Westbound		1340 Eastbound		Both trains
Month	Total	Daily	Total	Daily	Total	Daily
May 2024 (11 days)	3,622	329	3,028	275	6,650	605
June 2024 (30 days)	9,906	330	8,651	288	18,557	619
YTD (41 days)	13,528	330	11,679	285	25,207	615

Projected ridership before the start of service was all over the map, so it's difficult to say exactly how well it's doing—it's definitely doing well, it's just a matter of finding the most appropriate benchmark. There are approximately 300 seats per train, so at first blush, this would seem to be more than 100% utilization, although most passengers are only riding for part of the route, and trains averaged being about 50% full in May (1.3 million passenger-miles vs. 2.6 million seat-miles).

All Aboard Minnesota says that MnDOT expected 125,000 riders per year, and AAMN themselves had forecasted 155,000. Those are closer to Amtrak's feasibility report from 2015 which estimated 117,500 (option 4-A) and 155,000 (option 4-B) for two schedule options. Due to high estimated capital costs, neither of those were chosen, and a third "4-C" cost-optimized option was moved forward that used a schedule very similar to what the Borealis has today, though the study didn't provide any passenger count forecasts.

	Westbound		Eastbound		Est. ridership
Schedules	Dep. CHI	Arr. MSP	Dep. MSP	Arr. CHI	Annual	Daily
Option 4-A	9:25 am	4:42 pm	2:25 pm	9:54 pm	117,500	322
Option 4-B	9:25 am	4:42 pm	12:25 pm	7:57 pm	155,500	426
Option 4-C	10:15 am	N/A	11:46 am	N/A	N/A	N/A
MnDOT					125,000¹	343
WisDOT					231,900	635
Borealis	11:05 am	6:29 pm	11:50 am	7:14 pm	224,475²	615

¹Via All Aboard Minnesota
²Multiplying current year-to-date average of 615 daily riders by 365 days

So, with those numbers sitting in the back of my head, I was really shocked to see news articles with much higher figures, such as 232,000 in the Star Tribune. It took me a while to notice that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation put a figure of 231,900 on their website, which is presumably what the Star Tribune reporter used. The number also appeared in testimony to Congress last year (along with the briefly-floated Great River name for the train).

I'm not sure where that figure ultimately comes from, but since the Borealis ended up being an extension of a pair of Hiawatha trains (train 333 became 1333, and train 340 became 1340), it seems likely WisDOT or Amtrak either directly added estimates for the 2nd daily train to ridership for that pre-existing train pair, or used a model that incorporated both existing and new ridership, while the older estimates from 2015 may have ignored some of the existing riders.

As of April, Hiawatha trains had carried 381,000 riders across 2,797 trains so far in Amtrak's 2024 fiscal year, so the average for a single train was 136 riders, or 272 passengers for a pair of trains. So if the Borealis was running empty between St. Paul and Milwaukee, you'd expect to see right around 100,000 passengers for the year. But simply adding that to the older projections doesn't really line up properly, so there has probably been some newer modeling that I don't currently have access to.

Depending on which number you're looking at, the train is either massively beating projections, or within a few percentage points of where it was expected to be. I'm certainly glad it isn't massively below where it was expected, but these different numbers definitely create confusion.

Now the question is, how much farther can it go? That's really hard to say. Westbound trains are overselling seating, with around 15% more riders being carried than there are seats available, and eastbound trains have ridership that almost exactly matches the seat count. The average trip length is only around 200 miles, though, so the trains had an average load factor of about 50% in May.

Ridership could theoretically double, but that would require most new trips to be added west of Milwaukee, since it looks like around 40% of the seating gets used just for the existing Hiawatha base of ridership between Milwaukee and Chicago. Dealing with full trains on the busiest segment will be a challenge going forward.

While I hope rumors of a third daily train are actually meaningful and can happen sometime soon, the most immediate way to accommodate growth would be to add another car to the existing trains. Business-class seating appears to sell out quickly on the Borealis, so a full business-class car would be a nice addition.

But for now, travel demand is able to overflow to the Empire Builder if needed. I haven't yet seen a day where both trains are sold out, but we'll have to keep an eye out in case that starts happening.

Be careful finding "profit" in Amtrak reports

An unfortunately misleading headline from the Business Journal (link)

Revenues happily exceeded expenses on Amtrak's new Borealis service during the first 11 days of operation in May, but it would be more appropriate to call that excess revenue a "surplus" rather than "profit," like the Business Journal did in the screenshotted headline above. Very few Amtrak routes have ticket revenues that exceed operating expenses, and the Borealis is not among those lucky(-ish) exceptions.

On average, Amtrak's state-supported "corridor" routes like the Borealis are currently covering about 43% of their expenses through ticket fares, while long-distance routes do slightly better at 46%. Amtrak's Monthly Performance Report for May has very limited precision, rounding ridership to the hundreds and other figures to the nearest 100,000, but it appears the new trains had ticket sales cover about 60% of that very early operating cost: Operating expenses were $500,000, while revenues were $600,000, including $300,000 in fares (the train is unceremoniously listed on the last page as "St. Paul - Chicago").

Another $300,000 above and beyond ticket income magically appears in the train's revenue column, but where did that come from? Some of it may be café car sales, but the bulk of that is the state-level funding from Minnesota and Wisconsin to operate the train (which, for the first few years of operation, is mostly pass-through federal funding).

Amtrak route performance for May 2024, with the Borealis (St. Paul - Chicago) highlighted (PDF)

Fares for the Borealis start out at 10¢ per mile, or $41 for the whole 410-mile distance from St. Paul to Chicago, but climb as more passengers buy tickets. There's also a small 30-seat business-class section in the café car that has much higher fares. On average over the first 11 days, passengers paid about 23¢ per mile for their tickets, so many people were paying a substantial premium over the base fare, although that's less than the 27¢-per-mile average fare across all state-supported Amtrak routes so far this fiscal year. The approximately 11¢-per-mile subsidy is well below the current IRS deduction rate of 67¢ per mile.

The Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers also recently obtained ridership figures more precise than what's in Amtrak's monthly report, showing an average of 329 daily westbound passengers and 275 eastbound, for 604 total riders per day. The total for May was 6,650 riders across 22 train trips on 11 days. 38.5% of the ridership was in the Chicago–Milwaukee part of the corridor.

Prior to the start of service, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said the line was projected to have 231,900 riders in the first year, an average of 635 per day, so the train reached 95% of the projected figure right out of the gate. Hopefully the ridership will inch upward as more people become aware of it and figure out how to fit it into their travel plans.

It's really difficult to draw hard conclusions from such early snapshots and the small numbers contained within. Expenses are probably a bit in flux, and it's hard to say how much of the early ridership and revenue came from people excited to try the train but who may or may not come back. But the train is off to a good start, and has a bright future as long as it has sustained support.

Political routes: North and northwest

Map of Minnesota legislative districts from the Iowa border up through the Fargo and Duluth areas (link)

A couple election cycles ago, I focused some of my frustrations with the current political climate by looking up districts along existing and planned passenger rail lines in Minnesota, to help guide my donations. Early voting has begun for the August 13th primary in the state, so it's time to update and share some of that.

Of course, possible corridors run through almost the entire state, so taking a broad approach doesn't necessarily help filter down the choices very much, but looking at one or two corridors at a time is useful. Plus, looking along rail lines helps pull some focus away from Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Twin Cities suburbs—an area with a more active political scene, often to the detriment of outstate races that deserve support too.

I'm focusing here on two main routes, the combined Northstar and Amtrak corridor from Minneapolis through Big Lake and St. Cloud to up to Fargo–Moorhead, and the Northern Lights Express corridor which branches off in Coon Rapids and heads north through Cambridge and Hinckley to reach Duluth, and once had plans for a commuter rail line on the southern part of the corridor as well.

I hate to have to just go through this list and give blanket DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) endorsements, since I really do like to believe in the ideals of politics and that people of differing viewpoints can work together to find solutions. We're unfortunately in a state of affairs where Republicans are acting out of spite and malice, cutting programs and services that help people while trying to upend democracy as we know it, and cement a power structure that will make them impossible to oust from office through ordinary means. Democrats certainly aren't immune to making bad choices, but the differences are night and day right now.

There certainly have been Republican politicians who are advocates of passenger rail, and who have fought to keep current lines in operation. The United States has done a far better job of maintaining Amtrak service than Canada has with Via Rail, for instance, which has shrunk dramatically since its inception. However, they still balk more readily at following through to pay for expansion, so intercity rail has been stuck in doldrums for a long time, even as shorter-distance rail transit has generally expanded. So, my lists below will mainly be giving information on DFL candidates.

I've only had time to look through House of Representatives candidates for the Minnesota Legislature and U.S. Congress, but anyone able to take the time should look into mayoral, city council, and county elections along these routes as well.

Northstar: Minneapolis to Big Lake, with St. Cloud extension

The Northstar Line is suffering from a lack of political willpower right now (or actively anti-rail sentiment), still operating at a reduced schedule following intense cutbacks from the COVID pandemic. It's been falsely labeled as a poor performer from the beginning of operation, when it was given a schedule that made it virtually impossible to meet the ridership targets necessary to trigger expansion.

It was supposed to have 9 round-trips per day rather than 6. Individual trains have been pretty full, busier than most other commuter lines in the the country, but the limited schedule has meant the ridership with ⅔ of the intended schedule has reached ⅔ of the intended target. It should be given a proper schedule and be expanded to St. Cloud.

BNSF Railway expanded double-tracking in the corridor about a decade ago, and Amtrak is rebuilding the station platform in St. Cloud to meet current ADA requirements, so the threshold for what's needed to get trains running there should be low. Host railroads for passenger projects always say that they need investment in physical infrastructure in order to maintain their vague notions of "capacity," but a double-track mainline like what they have should be capable of very frequent trains. Some investment will be needed, but it will be pocket change compared to the amount spent on streets and highways in Minnesota each year.

Minnesota House districts

Northstar currently runs through MN House districts 59B, 60A, 39A, 34B, 35B, 35A, 31A, 30B, and 27A. There are no stops in 60A, 34B, or 35B, although the latter two would likely share a Foley Boulevard station in Coon Rapids if that ever comes about.

Extending service northwest from Big Lake would go through Becker and Clear Lake in 27A to St. Cloud in 14B (hard to say if both Becker and Clear Lake would get future stations, but Becker would almost certainly get one). I'll include district 14A as well, which isn't on the rail line but covers much of St. Cloud and has an edge only blocks away from the Amtrak station there.

Minnesota House districts along the Northstar line and proposed extension to St. Cloud

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
59B	Minneapolis (Target Field station)	DFL	Esther Agbaje	Esther Agbaje	97.0%
60A1	Minneapolis	DFL	Sydney Jordan	Sydney Jordan	73.9%
39A	Fridley (station), Hilltop, Spring Lake Park	DFL	Erin Koegel	Erin Koegel	26.7%
34B1,2	Coon Rapids, Brooklyn Park	DFL	Melissa Hortman	Melissa Hortman	25.1%
35B1,2	Coon Rapids, Andover	DFL	Jerry Newton3	Kari Rehrauer	1.3%
35A	Coon Rapids (station), Anoka (station)	DFL	Zack Stephenson	Zack Stephenson	4.9%
31A	Ramsey (station)	R	Harry Niska	Dara Grimmer	-19.1%
30B	Elk River (station)	R	Paul Novotny	Paul Bolin	-31.2%
27A	Big Lake (station), Becker, Clear Lake	R	Shane Mekeland	Kathryn A. Geary	-41.9%
14B4	St. Cloud (station)	DFL	Dan Wolgamott	Dan Wolgamott	3.7%
14A	St. Cloud, Waite Park, St. Joseph	R	Bernie Perryman	Abdi Daisane	-1.3%

¹Tracks pass through this district, but no stations exist there
²Coon Rapids – Foley Boulevard station would be on the border of districts 34B and 35B
³Newton is retiring in 35B and has endorsed Rehrauer
⁴St. Cloud is served by Amtrak, but not Northstar

State house seats can swing pretty wildly from election to election, so it's hard to say which of these are really "safe" in either direction. I'd most readily recommend donating in the races for districts 35A, 35B, 14A, and 14B. Dan Wolgamott in St. Cloud has been a significant proponent of Northstar expansion, and it wold be great to flip the 14A seat in St. Cloud in order to build a stronger base of support there.

It's a shame that district 27A's DFL candidate Kathryn (Kathy?) Geary doesn't have a website that I could find, since that district could potentially gain two new stations if the line was extended. Aside from 14A in St. Cloud, donating to Dara Grimmer in 31A is your next best bet to flip a seat to DFL, followed by supporting Paul Bolin in 30B.

As of right now, cities with Northstar stations only see three trains inbound to Minneapolis each morning with one outbound, then the opposite in the evening, and the line currently only has weekday service. This needs to at least be expanded back to the pre-pandemic service level, and more trips need to be added midday and in the evening to allow people to ride who aren't just commuting downtown for a 9–5 job. St. Cloud should also get more daily Amtrak service, which I'll talk about below.

U.S. House districts

Zooming out, Northstar operates in U.S. House districts 5, 3, and 6:

U.S. House districts along the Northstar line and proposed extension to St. Cloud

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
5	Minneapolis, Fridley	DFL	Ilhan Omar	Ilhan Omar	49.8%
3	Coon Rapids, Anoka, Ramsey (south of station), western suburbs	DFL	Dean Phillips	Kelly Morrison	19.2%
6	Ramsey, Elk River, Big Lake, Becker, Clear Lake, St. Cloud, northern/western exurbs	R	Tom Emmer	Jeanne Hendricks	-24.2%

Ilhan Omar is facing an opponent in this year's primary (actually multiple, although two of them didn't provide any website), and she can use support for that now even though the DFL candidate is a shoo-in for the general election in November. Early in-person and voting by mail has already begun, and the primary ends August 13th.

Dean Phillips is unable to run this year because he entered the Democratic presidential primary race, and Minnesota doesn't allow people to run for multiple offices at the same time. Kelly Morrison is the endorsed candidate instead. I'm not sure how suburbs will swing this year, so I'm sure she could use support too.

Jeanne Hendricks also has an opponent in the primary, but Jeanne is the one that gained the DFL endorsement through the caucus system. Dan Wolgamott and Abdi Daisane of St. Cloud have been actively campaigning with her. That general election race is a bit of a long shot, but I have no idea how things will play out this year.

The current Republican-held U.S. House is trying again to cut funding to Amtrak and other programs intended to expand passenger rail in the country—something that has been deeply under-funded for decades—while continuing to boost more heavily-polluting highway and airport expansion instead. So flipping that chamber to Democrats would make it much easier to finally grow new intercity services again.

Amtrak to Fargo–Moorhead

One of the highest priorities for expanding rail service in Minnesota is adding a daytime Amtrak train from the Twin Cities to Fargo. This would overlay the existing Empire Builder service, and both would ideally stop at a couple of stations served by Northstar. St. Cloud is the obvious shared stop if Northstar can be extended there, and there are multiple options in the Twin Cities, including Target Field in Minneapolis, Fridley station, or the long-proposed Foley Boulevard station in Coon Rapids.

Partial schedule for the Empire Builder showing late-night and early morning departures in St. Cloud, Staples, Detroit Lakes, and Fargo. These areas deserve daytime service too, and need political support for additional train service (trimmed from full PDF).

Aside from the current station in St. Cloud, the Empire Builder also stops in Staples, Detroit Lakes, and Fargo (across the river from Moorhead, and the two cities share a local bus system).

Amtrak service to Fargo might continue westward from there through the state as a revival of the old North Coast Hiawatha service and its Northern Pacific Railway predecessors, but it's possible that could take a different route by running westward from Minneapolis to Willmar and then north to Fargo.

Minnesota House districts

The Empire Builder continues beyond St. Cloud through Minnesota House districts: 13B, 10B, 10A, 5B, 9B, 5A, 4B, and 4A before crossing into North Dakota.

Minnesota House districts along the Empire Builder route north and west of St. Cloud

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
13B	Sartell, Sauk Rapids	R	Tim O'Driscoll	Dusty Bolstad	-33.5%
10B	Rice, Milaca	R	Isaac Schultz	JoEllen Burns	-57.3%
10A	Little Falls, Aitkin	R	Ron Kresha	Julia Samsal Hipp	-92.6%
5B	Staples (station), Long Prairie, Wadena	R	Mike Wiener	Gregg Hendrickson	-51.0%
9B	New York Mills, Perham	R	Tom Murphy	Jason Satter	-40.8%
5A	Frazee, Park Rapids	R	Krista Knudsen	Brian Hobson	-41.0%
4B	Detroit Lakes (station), Dilworth	R	Jim Joy	Thaddeus Laugisch	-25.9%
4A	Moorhead	DFL	Heather Keeler	Heather Keeler	17.3%

Those are some very tough-looking numbers, but many of them may not really be as bad as they look at first glance.

For the purposes of this list, Sauk Rapids and Sartell are close enough to directly benefit from expanded service at St. Cloud station, especially since they're also in the St. Cloud Metro Bus network. Maybe someone can help Dusty Bolstad fill out her website, which looks very sparse.

It's unfortunate that I can't find much information on JoEllen Burns in 10B. Ages ago, Northstar was supposedly being studied to potentially reach Rice, but who knows how realistic that ever was. It could have been a mini commuter extension for people wanting to get into St. Cloud, on top of the service for everyone headed toward Minneapolis. This looks like it's the most rural district on the list. I really hate to see the urban/rural divide play out with drastic political splits, since I think we do have a responsibility to help people live better lives wherever they are. The line of the Empire Builder passes through but doesn't stop anywhere in 10B, although the southwest corner of the district isn't far from St. Cloud, so expanded Amtrak and Northstar service would still help people in the district.

10A looks especially tough at first glance, but Ron Kresha ran unopposed in 2022. He's facing a primary opponent this year, but I can't evaluate either of their chances since my values don't align with theirs. Little Falls would be a great place to add another station along the line to Fargo since it has a larger population than Staples, and is now up above 9,000 residents. Little Falls would be a great access point for people driving down from Brainerd. Julia Hipp is running on the DFL side in that race. Help her build up a foothold in Little Falls and the other larger towns in the district.

Gregg Hendrickson previously ran against Mike Wiener in 2022, but under the Independence-Alliance Party, a descendant of the state Reform party that Jesse Ventura ran under back in 1998. There wasn't a DFL candidate that year, so perhaps people were anxious to opt for a third party. Ventura was a champion for getting light rail and commuter rail started in Minnesota, so Hendrickson could try and build on that legacy as he runs as a DFLer this time around. Staples station is in the district and would benefit from a daytime train instead of the 2 am and 5:30 am arrivals it sees today.

District 5A is another of the most rural ones along the line. The Empire Builder runs through Frazee on the western edge of the district, but does not stop there. Staples is not far away from it, though. Knudsen and Hobson previously ran against each other in 2022.

4B is home to Detroit Lakes and the station there, and extends west all the way to the North Dakota border, wrapping around but not including Moorhead. Detroit Lakes currently sees the Empire Builder scheduled for about 3 am and 4:30 am, so it would greatly benefit from daytime rail service. Dilworth in the west part of the district is the end of the Staples subdivision that runs from Minneapolis, and there's a large rail yard there.

4A is the final Minnesota House district, where Heather Keeler is the DFL incumbent in Moorhead and is running again. She appears to have had a consistent level of support from the voters, but of course I wouldn't use that an excuse to avoid supporting her this time around. Fargo, right across the Red River of the North from Moorhead, currently has the Empire Builder scheduled for around 3:30 and 4:15 am.

If I had time, I'd cross the river and look at the North Dakota districts too, but I'll have to end there. Getting expanded service in Fargo is very important, since the Fargo–Moorhead area now has more than 260,000 residents. Despite that, the awkward scheduling means it has the third-busiest Amtrak station in North Dakota, even though it's the biggest city and metro in that state.

U.S. House districts

There is one U.S. House district between St. Cloud and Fargo, district 7:

U.S. House districts along the Empire Builder route north and west of St. Cloud

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
5	Detroit Lakes, Staples, Moorhead, Alexandria, Hutchinson, Litchfield, Morris, Marshall, Willmar, etc.	R	Michelle Fischbach	AJ (John) Peters	-33.9% to -39.3%

Congressional District 7 is huge, larger than 10 states. There was a Legal Marijuana Now candidate in 2022 who likely split some of the electorate, but it's hard to say how much, and the district certainly has a substantial conservative lean.

The district has two stations in it and is close to two others. There are other rail corridors that have been studied to run through here, most prominently running west from Minneapolis through Litchfield (north of Hutchinson) to Willmar, with one branch splitting north to head to Fargo via Morris, and another heading south to Sioux Falls, South Dakota via Marshall (though some plans have that running via Mankato and Worthington instead, which would just barely clip through the southern edge of the district.

Hopefully AJ Peters can make some progress this year.

Northern Lights Express: Minneapolis to Duluth

The long-planned Northern Lights Express would return rail service to Duluth, which previously had Amtrak service until 1985. In addition to the Northstar districts up through Coon Rapids, NLX is planned to run through Minnesota House districts 31B, 27B, 28A, 11B, 11A, and 8A. I included 8B covering the other half of Duluth.

The line would also run through some districts in Wisconsin, including a stop planned for Superior, but I'm not going to investigate that here. At present, it seems the NLX line is only expected to stop in Minneapolis, a suburban station such as Coon Rapids – Foley Boulevard, Cambridge, Hinckley, Superior (WI), and Duluth.

There had been plans for a Bethel corridor commuter service, though despite the name, I think it was intended to run to Cambridge.

Minnesota House districts along the planned Northern Lights Express

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
59B	Minneapolis (Target Field station)	DFL	Esther Agbaje	Esther Agbaje	97.0%
60A1	Minneapolis	DFL	Sydney Jordan	Sydney Jordan	73.9%
39A	Fridley (station), Hilltop, Spring Lake Park	DFL	Erin Koegel	Erin Koegel	26.7%
34B1,2	Coon Rapids, Brooklyn Park	DFL	Melissa Hortman	Melissa Hortman	25.1%
35B1,2	Coon Rapids, Andover	DFL	Jerry Newton3	Kari Rehrauer	1.3%
31B1	Andover, Oak Grove, East Bethel, Ham Lake	R	Peggy Scott	Gadisa Berkessa	-36.2%
27B1	Bethel, Princeton, Zimmerman	R	Bryan Lawrence	Andrew Scouten	-69.1%
28A	Cambridge, Isanti, North Branch	R	Brian Johnson	Tim Dummer	-36.1%
11B	Hinckley, Sandstone, Mora, Pine City	R	Nathan Nelson	Eric Olson	-36.8%
11A1	Cloquet, Esko, Moose Lake	R	Jeff Dotseth	Pete Radosevich	-2.5%
8A	Duluth (station)	DFL	Liz Olson4	Pete Johnson	41.1%
8B	Duluth	DFL	Alicia Kozlowski	Alicia Kozlowski	42.2%

¹Tracks pass through this district, but no stations exist or are planned there
²Coon Rapids – Foley Boulevard station would be on the border of districts 34B and 35B
³Newton is retiring in 35B and has endorsed Rehrauer
⁴Liz Olson is retiring in 8A, Pete Johnson is DFL-endorsed

I'm fairly surprised by a few of these districts where, since I think DFL candidates underperformed in the last election cycle. They districts between Coon Rapids and Duluth are certainly challenging, but I think there are better prospects there.

At the south end, district 31B has some substantially-sized suburbs, although many of them are roughly 6x6 mile former townships that incorporated as cities, so they have quite low density. Still, when Andover (roughly split in half between 35B and 31B has 32,000 residents and other nearby cities fall in the 8,000 to 15,000 range, there should be more effort put into vying for that district. I don't see a specific website for Gadisa Berkessa, but there are some other search hits. I did find his donation page, though.

Similarly, I don't see clear information on Andrew Scouten for 27B, as there appear to be multiple people by that name. Someone willing to put their feet on the ground in Zimmerman and Princeton would likely improve the odds drastically.

Tim Dummer does have a brief article about himself, but that's about it. Cambridge is a substantial place of about 10,000 residents, so there should be some better effort being done there. He does at least have a donation page.

District 11B is the one that I would have expected to be the most challenging so far, since it appears to be the most rural of the bunch. Mora appears to be the largest city in the district, followed by Pine City, each of which are between 3,000 and 4,000 residents. It's a bit odd that Hinckley has been chosen as a site for a Northern Lights Express stop, but it's close to where the line crosses Interstate 35, and for good or ill, the nearby casino may add a lot of riders too.

I was surprised when pulling up the numbers for District 11A. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any stops on the line, since the tracks veer off into Wisconsin in the southwestern part of it, but Pete Radosevich managed to get within 3% of Jeff Dotseth in 2022. I don't know what he's doing, but it's much better than the other folks along the corridor had been pulling off. The biggest population center is Cloquet, around 12,600 people.

In district 8A, Liz Olson is retiring. There are two Johnsons running in the primary to replace her, but Pete Johnson gained the DFL endorsement and is the only one with a fully-fledged online presence. Duluth has pretty safe seats for DFLers, so it will mostly come down to who wins the primary.

Finally, Alicia Kozlowski is the DFL incumbent in partner district 8B in Duluth.

U.S. House districts

The Northern Lights Express route shares U.S. House districts 5, 3, and 8 with Northstar as it heads north from Minneapolis. The additional U.S. House seat that NLX is planned to reach is Congressional District 8, currently occupied by Pete Stauber

U.S. House districts along the planned Northern Lights Express

District	Cities	Cur. party	Incumbent	Preferred candidate	2022 margin
5	Minneapolis, Fridley	DFL	Ilhan Omar	Ilhan Omar	49.8%
3	Coon Rapids, Anoka, Ramsey (south of station), western suburbs	DFL	Dean Phillips	Kelly Morrison	19.2%
6	Ramsey, Elk River, Big Lake, Becker, Clear Lake, St. Cloud, northern/western exurbs	R	Tom Emmer	Jeanne Hendricks	-24.2%
8	Duluth, Cambridge, Hinckley, Hibbing, Grand Rapids, Bemidji	R	Pete Stauber	Jennifer Schultz	-14.5%

The 8th district historically had a pretty good DFL tilt on account of the mining activity up on the Iron Range and other blue-collar jobs in the region, but that faded in recent election cycles. Perhaps renewed concerns about labor conditions will bring about a resurgence. Jennifer Schultz ran against Stauber in 2022 and is trying again this year. Both are facing primary challengers, though I imagine both will be in the general election again.

While I could quibble about station locations a lot, the Northern Lights Express route is planned to have multiple round-trips daily (it should be at least 4, and I recall as many as 8 being floated in the past), which would massively improve the ability to get around on rails in the corridor. The rural nature of the area north of Cambridge is a challenge to being able to reach people who would need it, but it would be a boon for Duluth and other parts of northern Minnesota.

Hopefully these lists will help motivate some donations and volunteer effort in favor of candidates who have visions looking toward the future rather than tearing down the world we're trying to build. For my sanity, I'm just hoping to expand our mass transportation system along these routes and get us moving away from the deep car dependency we experience today. Supporting the candidates here is one way to move in that direction.

A third train could use the Borealis improvements

A stringline plot of currently-scheduled train trips on the St. Paul–Milwaukee–Chicago corridor shown in red, with three options for extending Hiawatha trains that would benefit from the track improvements in Winona through La Crosse

Yesterday, Star Tribune reporter Greta Kaul posted:

That's great news, especially on the ridership front! I am, however, very accustomed to politicians and reporters misstating and misinterpreting anything and everything about train services, so I'm hoping there will be a follow-up article clarifying a few things. For today, I'll take it as a win and hope that we'll soon see another trip pair following the current route.

While writing my previous article on where track improvements are being made with the initial Borealis-related funds, the thought did occur to me that future trips on the corridor could make use of those new sidings and rearranged rails between Winona and La Crosse, even if the current Borealis trips are largely moving through there without trouble.

Since the Borealis is an extension of Hiawatha trains 1333 (westbound/northbound) and 1340 (eastbound/southbound), I took a look at other Hiawatha trips to see which ones would be scheduled to pass by other Amtrak trains in that general area.

Train 329 which departs Chicago at 6:10 am would meet eastbound Empire Builder no. 8 around there, and train 331 departing Chicago at 8:25 am would meet Borealis train 1340 in that zone. Assuming the schedules are duplicated exactly from existing Borealis train 1333, they would be scheduled to arrive at St. Paul Union Depot at 1:39 pm and 3:54 pm.

In the other direction, extending Hiawatha train 342 back to St. Paul would have it departing from here at 1:40 pm, and it would meet westbound/northbound Borealis train 1340 right around La Crosse.

These are not the only times that an added train could run, but are ones that would best leverage the existing investment.

If Amtrak is only able to provide one set of train equipment, the best option here would probably be to use the 6:10 am train 329 from Chicago, then have it only stay in St. Paul long enough to head back at around 3 or 4 pm, and arrive back in Chicago in the 10:30 pm to 11:30 pm time frame. That would add a later trip between Milwaukee and Chicago on the Hiawatha corridor, though who knows if that trip would require additional track improvements there. That's somewhat appealing since the return trip roughly mirrors the Empire Builder schedule from Chicago to St. Paul.

I'd like to see some morning arrival options for St. Paul, though I'd be hesitant to try and run a night train with Horizon coaches, for the sake of passenger comfort, but I'm sure there would be people who'd take advantage of it.

There are many different possibilities for when a third daily train pair could run, and that's not even counting the potential variations through Eau Claire and Madison that are in the planning pipeline. Both of those will require significant investment in track rehabilitation (and the most straightforward Eau Claire routing actually has a gap of about 10 miles where track was removed and needs to be fully replaced)

I'm anxious about funding and, well, ~everything~, but let's hope things really can happen quickly this time around. Next year, when Winona–La Crosse track improvements are done? Sure would be nice.