After reading it with attention focused on lines west, the prize for unlikely routings should go to the Denver<>Rapid City<>Twin Cities route. Abandonments have Balkanized the area and on the east end of South Dakota it was too easy to build track, so everyone in the 19th century did just that.
Ha, I agree with your assessment completely! It's a somewhat wacko and unexpected route; I'm calling it the "squiggle" line due to how the line looks in western SD and down through WY into Denver. I'm a Minnesotan and I really don't think that this would be the best investment of Amtrak's focus + funds.
I'd much prefer a direct new Denver - Twin Cities routing to go via the former Omaha Road/C&NW (now UP) trackage from St. Paul and diagonally through southern MN via Mankato, MN and down to Sioux City, then to Omaha and on to Denver. I have to imagine (does anyone here know roughly?) that this routing would take more time than what is projected for the Denver - TC via Rapid City and Sioux Falls route, if not less time!?
I think you're spot on with what the routing seems to be made up of! My admitted strong personal bias is for trains to head over to Worthington on mostly former C&NW tracks and then up the UP to St. Paul. This routing would serve a larger population in rural Minnesota (several large colleges and universities in Mankato + St. Peter alone) and is relatively more direct than taking what I call the 'long swing' through deep rural western MN and then finally over to the Twin Cities via Willmar.
Of course, the only slight problem with this (lol, sarcasm
) is that the former C&NW line is out of service between Brandon, SD and Manley, MN (junction w/BNSF). The out of service part of the line (hurrah for rail investment!) in the process of being restored by the Ellis & Eastern Railroad, which owns all the track to from Sioux Falls to Agate/Org, MN (junction w/UP) near Worthington. They're also upgrading the rest of the line as well...but from basically Class 1 track (maybe some Class 2?) to Class 2, *maybe* Class 3. So, the line would need additional updating to Class 3 to allow decent passenger speeds. On the other hand, this route wouldn't happen for a long time anway, so the current track restoration and rebuild job (to be completed in the coming 3-4 years or less) will be done long before it would open.
Enough of my rambling! I was just tickled to see someone else reacting to this funky route, of which I have personal connections to parts of