“Will Twin Cities to Duluth train succeed where it once failed?” asks a headline from a St. Paul news station. As Betteridge’s law of headlines states, “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no,” and I’m pretty sure that applies here.
Should Minnesota’s failed commuter train be supplemented by a failed intercity passenger train? Photo by Jerry Huddleston.
There are exceptions to Betteridge’s law, of course. For example, this 2019 headline, “Could the Commuter Rail from Minneapolis to Duluth be a Flop?” poses the same question in the opposite direction. One of the two headlines violates Betteridge’s law. My money is on the law applying to the first but not the second.
For one thing, Amtrak will be competing against Jefferson Lines, Landline, and possibly other bus companies, not to mention Delta Airlines. The buses will not only operate more frequently, they allow riders to choose from departing from downtown Minneapolis, downtown St. Paul, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, the University of Minnesota, or the Mall of American at Bloomington. Amtrak will depart only from St. Paul and will probably charge higher fares than the buses. Delta offers at least three flights a day and while airfares are more than Amtrak is likely to charge, the flights only take about a quarter as long as the train.
Amtrak’s failed train, which was discontinued in 1985, was called the North Star. Metro Transit used the same name for its commuter train from Minneapolis to the megalopolis of Big Lake. This is the third-worst-performing commuter train in the country: before the pandemic, it carried just 2,700 weekday riders and fares covered just 15 percent of operating costs. There’s no reason to think a Duluth train is going to do any better.
Amtrak won’t spend the money to make this train happen unless Minnesota agrees to cover its operating costs. Representative Erin Koegel is more than happy to impose this cost on state taxpayers. She believes Amtrak projections that fares will cover 63 percent of operating costs “because it’s an intercity passenger rail connecting one major destination to another major destination.”
Minneapolis-St. Paul has 2.9 million people, so it certainly qualifies as a major destination. The Duluth-Superior urban area, however, has fewer than 120,000 people. Koegel represents a town in Minnesota that has only 6,400 residents, so from her viewpoint 120,000 may be major. From a passenger train viewpoint, however, it is far from major.
Looking at Amtrak’s routes, the only one I find that has a big city at one end with a small town at the other with little in-between is Chicago-Quincy, which has two trains a day supported by the state of Illinois. Amtrak claims these trains made $18.0 million in revenues against $17.3 million in costs (not including depreciation) in 2022. However, Amtrak includes state subsidies from Illinois in its “operating revenues,” and those subsidies to this and other Illinois trains amount to about $46 million a year. Counting passenger fares only, these trains are big money losers.
Unfortunately, the state of Minnesota has already agreed to spend $195 million to cover 20 percent of the capital costs of starting train service to Duluth. The state can still back away from this spending as Amtrak hasn’t agreed to accept the money until the state also agrees to fund operations.
On the principle that government always has to throw good money after bad, funding operations for one year means state taxpayers will be on the hook to subsidize train operations for decades no matter how low the ridership. Since the state already has more than adequate, not to mention unsubsidized, bus service in this corridor, it should not fund a train.
Any questioned article levies responsibility to the government…..no.
At least nit in a respectable or cost efficient manner.
The 1930’s saw the end of the airship era. Blimps and Airships however may make a comeback. An Ohio company Ohio Airships, and several newly emerging airship makers combines the advantages of air cargo while significantly reducing ecological problems. They achieve this by designing slow cargo airships, called “Dynalifters”. These air vessels mix the travel concepts of planes and Zeppelins. The company completed 4 conceptual designs for four different sizes. All designs are equipped with detachable cargo pods for rapid loading and off-loading, and a prototype with a length of 37 metres has already been built and tested.
They’re not blimps, they do not float away without a tether. The Dynalift is a airship/plane hybrid, it uses the helium/air bag to mitigate the 48% aircraft weight penalty. The airship has wings and engines and wheels and takes off and lands as passenger aircraft do. The aircraft do not fly at stratospheric altitudes often same as turboprops, thou they can and can navigate safely in as little as 2,000 feet or less. It’s prototype top speed is 200 km/h or 124 miles an hour, while four times slower than a jet it uses a fraction of the fuel to travel the same distances and can carry greater mass. The passenger gondola offers wider floor plans than jet’s, a 747 is 240 inches wide (20+ feet) a passenger gondola can be over 25 feet wide and windows the size of house windows because cabins don’t require extensive pressurization and open floor plans means no coach style seating so seating is more like a ferry. In ferry configuration, can openly carry 400 people, in open floor seating instead packed sardine cans.
Speed’s approaching 150-200 mph are doable, but the biggest advantage is efficiency. A dynalifter for comparisons say can use the a C130’s engines and wings and for the same fuel volume move 12x the cargo volume the same distance. In otherwords, per passenger mile, 6x more fuel efficient. Where 1/3 to half the price of a flight ticket is fuel consumed.
Because it uses the same infrastructure as planes for take off it has no need; Storage on other hand is another task as some of the vessels in mention are exceptionally large with one medium cargo variant being a full 700+ feet. However offers the benefit of infrastructure-less transportation, As it can land in areas where traditional aircraft can not,
providing greater versatility.
Model variants from 120 foot long patrol vessel to a nearly 1000 foot long Heavy cargo hauler.
Total cost for a person to drive round trip Minneapolis – Duluth is $150 dollars.
Total cost for a family to drive round trip Minneapolis – Duluth is $150.
Unless they’re going to just to hang out in tiny lil downtown Duluth, they’ll need to get a car to Gooseberry Falls, skiing and other regional attractions.
If prices are like other current Amtrak pricing for that distance, you’re looking at $75 – $100 round trip per ticket.
Unless you’re solo, driving will be bother more convenient and less expensive.
When this Duluth trains gets running, you’ll see the occasional story about someone who lives in Hinkley and takes the train to downtown Minneapolis a few times each month for work.