ST. PAUL, Minn. — Efforts to advance proposed Amtrak service between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Duluth-Superior will have to wait another year after the Minnesota legislature failed to address a bill which included funding for the proposed Northern Lights Express.
The proposed $550 million cost of starting the service, including adding capacity to BNSF’s main line, was part of an off-year bonding bill that was never taken up in a special legislative session, the Duluth News Tribune reports. Without state funding, the state cannot apply for the federal funds expected to pay for the majority of the project.
Proponents of the service met with state and Amtrak officials earlier this year, with Amtrak indicating its support for the proposal. [See “Supporters, Amtrak officials strike positive note after meetings on Duluth-Twin Cities train,” Trains News Wire, March 12, 2019.]
The proposal would restore Amtrak service to Duluth-Superior that ended in 1985 with the discontinuance of the North Star.
And we wonder why this nation doesn’t have any decent rail service.
M Singer – I totally agree with you!
Half a billion in start-up for a train that will lose money hand over fist. Not HSR, not a high-frequency corridor, just another train that will never come anywhere near coverings its cost.
The deal killer to ensure this proposed passenger route will never operate is the congressional legislation created to penalize all states outside of the NEC by forcing them to pay a non-negotiable allocation of full costs as identified by Amtrak’s own questionable, unaudited cost metrics. Known as PRIIA for the Passenger Rail Investment & Infrastructure Act of 2008, the intent of this act, as prepared by Stephen Gardner, who consequently earned his EVP position at Amtrak, has been for the non-NEC states to subsidize the blackhole of the NEC, so intercity Amtrak service and equipment acquisitions would be without charge to those NEC states. Lacking any credible external forensic audit to validate cost and revenue assumptions has enabled Amtrak to even “gin-up” their cost allocations by attributing obvious NEC and Corporate NEC-related costs to the state-supported corridors.
Despite the success of this model, the growing financial issues of the NEC has now encouraged Amtrak to mislead Congress on the real costs and revenues of the long distance routes, deploying an unheard of concept of breaking such routes with bus substitutions, or, just killing them altogether. This explains how Amtrak has reached back into history to borrow from the SP playbook to legally attack on the fringes the National Network by eliminating diners, reducing diner and lounge staffing, ’86’ inventory PAR levels, and avoiding any refurbishing of Superliners, let alone new orders.
Given this scenario, good luck if Minnesota expects Wisconsin to contribute to the Superior portion of the route, let alone the long delayed addition of the “Baby Builder” between St. Paul-Chicago. In addition to the astronomical costs demanded by PRIIA, just wait until those states see Amtrak’s financial demand for leasing locomotives and Horizon cars beyond their depreciation life. Just like the issue over health care, nothing will change until Congress decides it has seen enough to challenge Amtrak and change the metrics of PRIIA. Looking back, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) succinctly understood the issue and clarified with a single statement attached to Amtrak’s 2003 funding bill: “National or Nothing!”