Minneapolis/St. Paul-Rochester Zip Rail: Scoping document published

[beautifulplanet]

For the proposed 186+mph high-speed rail called "Zip Rail" from Rochester to Minneapolis/St. Paul, a scoping document was published a few weeks ago.

The document shows different possible routes, as well as different station locations in the Twin Cities area (St. Paul Union Station, MSP airport, or both, as well as a possible station in northern Dakota county at a destination or an activity center in the suburbs.

map source:

http://www.southernminn.com/the_kenyon_leader/news/article_7335dc1b-f328-5757-bbed-19dde22ff4b4.html

More information can also be found on the official Zip Rail website:

http://www.goziprail.org

 

[Tokkyu40]

For an 80 mile route? What's the advantage to that over 110mph service?

I could see it if they're looking at 200 miles or more, but it seems like the expensive way to get a short run local service.
I think they should start with slower trains on less expensive track on an alignment that can be upgraded later and expand it to a reasonable length before doing the high speed upgrades.

 

[bretton88]

For an 80 mile route? What's the advantage to that over 110mph service?

I could see it if they're looking at 200 miles or more, but it seems like the expensive way to get a short run local service.

I think they should start with slower trains on less expensive track on an alignment that can be upgraded later and expand it to a reasonable length before doing the high speed upgrades.

There are no existing rail links between the two cities, so it would have to be all greenfield. This would be an interesting demonstration corridor. It shouldn't be a very expensive alignment (comparatively) to get things up and running. The expensive part will be the access into Union Station or the airport, river bridges are never cheap. I'm intrigued to see where this goes.

 

[MattW]

I'd be interested to see a cost breakdown of building an entirely new rail corridor but at different speeds from 79mph conventional all the way through 220mph HSR. I'm curious to know if when building all-new RoW, if it's actually more beneficial to go straight for the higher speeds.

 

[NW cannonball]

Sorry to be the wet blanket

High-speed rail from MSP to Rochester MN?

No supporting ridership. No existing ROW.

The Mayo Clinic would have to about get 100 times customers to even give this line a 1% chance with a 99% subsidy.

No way on G's green earth.

The airport at Rochester MN can handle B747's they do, but I've seen the 747 of the UAE at MSP - because the parking fees at Rochester are -- well - big.

Spend a few billion of Minnesotas money for a HSP line that only a few sheiks and a few retirees might use -- duh.

This MSP-Rocherster-MN line seems -- how to say it --

Idiotic?

No passengers want it, Even, like I said , even the billion-buck sheik wont use it.

So what would that line be for? For whom?

Even supposing a 2 million people moving to minnesota in the next 3 decades?

 

[jis]

Agreed. Another silly project that will only be cannon fodder for the T Party to castigate all rail projects with.

A simple inter-urban DLRT line may be sustainable. But not what they are talking about. It would be fascinating to see what level of concocted ridership projections they use to meet the FTA new start thresholds.

 

[Eric S]

Rochester would be a reasonable place to serve on a Chicago-Twin Cities high speed line, but I can't see it making sense as a stand-alone Twin Cities-Rochester high speed line. Because there are no reasonable legacy rail lines to use, I'm not sure even a standard speed (79-90mph) service would make sense here.

Unless and until there is significant federal high speed rail funding or the state suddenly decides to invest *massive* sums in rail, I'd prefer to see MN build up regular passenger rail on existing rail lines first (perhaps Twin Cities-Duluth and/or Twin Cities-Fargo/Moorhead would be candidates). Then, once a network of standard passenger rail and connecting buses is in place (a la California and to some extent Illinois and others), move onto greenfield routes.

 

[bretton88]

I'm not going to argue the viability of this plan, there are higher priority corridors in MN. But since they'll have to do greenfield ROW, might as well make it true HSR, the incremental costs above standard rail can't be that high. But it does fit in the bigger picture, as far as a MSP-CHI link goes.

 

[jis]

I'm not going to argue the viability of this plan, there are higher priority corridors in MN. But since they'll have to do greenfield ROW, might as well make it true HSR, the incremental costs above standard rail can't be that high. But it does fit in the bigger picture, as far as a MSP-CHI link goes.

Which exact bigger picture are you referring to? Could you point to a single document anywhere that suggests that this line would someday form a part of a twin cities - Chicago HSR?

 

[Ispolkom]

Which exact bigger picture are you referring to? Could you point to a single document anywhere that suggests that this line would someday form a part of a twin cities - Chicago HSR?

The last time High-speed rail from Twin Cities to Chicago was discussed, a route via Rochester was discussed, though rejected. The Zip Rail wikipedia article does refer to a 2009 study. (warning: big pdf)

It all seems pie in the sky to me (and it's noteworthy that the same consulting firm was hired to repeatedly analyze the same issue), but if you ask for a document, there it is.

 

[bretton88]

Which exact bigger picture are you referring to? Could you point to a single document anywhere that suggests that this line would someday form a part of a twin cities - Chicago HSR?

The last time High-speed rail from Twin Cities to Chicago was discussed, a route via Rochester was discussed, though rejected. The Zip Rail wikipedia article does refer to a 2009 study. (warning: big pdf)

It all seems pie in the sky to me (and it's noteworthy that the same consulting firm was hired to repeatedly analyze the same issue), but if you ask for a document, there it is.

Rochester for a long time has campaigned to be a part of the CHI-MSP route. It was rejected in the last study (as noted above) but if ZipRail was somehow found to be feasible, it would certainly help their argument to have the corridor routed through Rochester.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Ispolkam's mention of consulting firms raking in money for doing studies,surveys etc. reminds me of one the Late President Johnsons favorite stories.

Seems there was a young school teacher who was interviewing for a teaching job back in the olden days and the Principal asked the applicant: " Do you teach that the world is flat or round?"

The young teacher thought for a minute and replied: " I can teach it either way, whichever you want!"

That's what consultants do, give their clients what they want!

 

[CHamilton]

Private company seeks exclusive rights for high-speed rail

The Minnesota Department of Transportation is considering granting a private company exclusive rights to lease air space on highways for an elevated high-speed rail line from Rochester to the Twin Cities.


The North American High Speed Rail Groupis seeking MnDOT Commissioner Charlie Zelle's approval for exclusive negotiating rights for two years for portions of I-494, Minnesota Highway 55, U.S. 52, U.S. 63 and Interstate-90, according to documents obtained by the Post-Bulletin from MnDOT under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

The company estimates the project would cost $4.2 billion to build. A sizable amount of that money — $1.4 billion — would come from Chinese investors, according to the documents. North American High Speed Rail Group Chairman Joseph Wang formerly worked for China's Ministry of Commerce. The company's business plan states the Minnesota rail project would be "the first in the U.S. to leverage a relationship with China in the (high-speed rail) market."

 

[Anderson]

My best guess is that these folks see the project as part of a potential MSP-CHI line. Yes, I know the alignment was rejected...but if you get a segment going then if you extend it later, the first segment is a fait accompli.

 

[jis]

That was the general method used for projects with big dreams. That is why there were so many short line railroads in the midwest with the word Pacific tacked onto their name. Only a few ever made it to the Pacific, while the rest either went out of business, were bought out by someone else, or quietly dropped the Pacific from their name while no one was looking.

 

[Ispolkom]

One problem with this plan is that it doesn't run from Minneapolis or St. Paul to Rochester. Instead it's a non-stop high speed train between Rochester and Minneapolis Airport. There are no rail connections and no benefits to people who live on the route (except for a possible stop in Dakota county). If it were built (and I'd bet against it ever reaching construction), we would have the absurd situation of three trains (Amtrak, North Star, and Zip Line) stopping at three different, widely separated stations (SPUD, Target Field, MSP).

 

[neroden]

Consider the "St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad", which never made it halfway to San Francisco.

Anyway, yeah, this is an attempt to get on the MSP-Chicago line. If it's built (say, if Mayo suddenly decided to throw $2 billion at it), I think it would obviously end up being on the MSP-Chicago line because there are all kinds of problems with the existing floodplain route.

 

[Bob Dylan]

There's also the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe which never actually operated in Santa Fe but did make it to the Pacific!

And the International and Great Northern ( I&GN) which reached as far as San Antonio in the Southwest, and was later bought out by MOPAC, ( Missouri Pacific RR) which as far as I know didn't reach the Pacific?

Interestingly the City of San Antonio has purchased the Beautiful Old I&GN/MOPAC Station on the West Side ( now a Credit Union) and has plans for an Intermodel Station including Amtrak to replace the current Amshack by the old SP Sunset Station on the East Side.

 

[jis]

There's also the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe which never actually operated in Santa Fe but did make it to the Pacific!

Which it did by purchasing a bunch of trackage in various fire sales west of Albuquerque, including the bit from Needles to Victorville from the SP, and then constructing its way down into the basin through Cajon Pass and onto San Diego.

The various endless arm wrestling that went on between the SP and the Santa Fe are legendary. Also the tug of war for Raton with the Rio Grande earlier on was fascinating, specially the way in which Santa Fe captured the only viable right of way through the Pass by striking a deal with the Wootton Ranch folks a laying a bit of track on the right of way disconnected from anything else, to establish control of it! Originally Santa Fe planned to go up the Royal Gorge, but that plan did not pan out.

 

[Eric S]

Wait, didn't the Santa Fe in fact have a branch line that served Santa Fe? I know their mainline never served Santa Fe, but I thought part of that branch was in use by New Mexico Rail Runner Express commuter trains.

 

[jis]

Wait, didn't the Santa Fe in fact have a branch line that served Santa Fe? I know their mainline never served Santa Fe, but I thought part of that branch was in use by New Mexico Rail Runner Express commuter trains.

Yes it did. However, the New Mexico Rail Runner track to Santa Fe is a new construction along the median of Interstate 25 to connect with the Santa Fe Main Line near Rosario. except for a short stretch near Santa Fe where it uses the original Santa Fe alignment. The original Santa Fe Railroad branch was from Lamy to Santa Fe, and is currently operated by the short line Santa Fe Southern.

 

[Eric S]

Santa Fe Southern. That's right. I couldn't remember the name of that shortline off the top of my head.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Thanks for the clarification about the Santa Fe branch line guys!

I wasn't clear in my post,I should have just said this, or that the Main Line never went to Santa Fe thus the crack trains like the Super Chief and the El Cap never went to Santa Fe!

 

[Anderson]

One problem with this plan is that it doesn't run from Minneapolis or St. Paul to Rochester. Instead it's a non-stop high speed train between Rochester and Minneapolis Airport. There are no rail connections and no benefits to people who live on the route (except for a possible stop in Dakota county). If it were built (and I'd bet against it ever reaching construction), we would have the absurd situation of three trains (Amtrak, North Star, and Zip Line) stopping at three different, widely separated stations (SPUD, Target Field, MSP).

Honestly, if this, North Star, NLX, etc. all came to pass you would likely see some sort of project to bring most or all of the services to either one common station or two stations with a high-frequency connection between them.

 

[Eric S]

My limited experience around and knowledge of Target Field Station suggests it's a rather constrained area, that it'd be tough to add more than maybe another track/platform or so - anyone have a better idea of how much space is available around there?

If the Twin Cities ever start to see significant numbers of passenger trains (whether to Chicago/Milwaukee, Duluth, Fargo, Rochester, or what not, or a big ramp up in regional commuter rail service) it seems that St. Paul Union Depot might be better able to handle a big increase in service, with some tricky decisions about which trains actually serve Minneapolis as well (or instead)