Hentges, Morrow on rail panel

Several local angles involved

By Mark Fischenich

MANKATO — The Mankato area has a pair of representatives on a key railroad planning committee and those representatives have three decisions they’ll be trying to influence.

Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges and state Rep. Terry Morrow, a St. Peter Democrat whose district includes most of North Mankato, are on the Policy Advisory Committee of a task force that will be formulating a new statewide rail plan.

The plan will influence three issues important to Mankato — the route of a high-speed train from the Twin Cities to Chicago, which regional centers in the state are targeted for passenger trail, and where the state and federal governments target funding for freight line improvements.

The first might be the hottest the task force will tackle before completing the plan late this year. The idea of high-speed trains from Chicago to the Twin Cities has been discussed for years, but an emphasis on rapid rail by the Obama administration is making the possibility more real.

The assumption had long been that the trains would follow the current Amtrak route through Winona and Red Wing along the Mississippi River. Rochester civic leaders, however, are pushing hard to move the route to their city.

One proposal would run the trains west from Rochester to the Interstate 35 corridor before they would turn north to Minneapolis.

At a recent meeting, the task force voted to make the Amtrak route the primary route and the Rochester alternative. Hentges voted with Rochester’s delegation.

“The closer that route can be to Mankato, the better for our citizens — certainly in getting to Chicago,” Hentges said.

But Mankatoans probably shouldn’t dream of being able to access high-speed rail with a 45-minute drive to Owatonna or Faribault, Hentges said. Even if the route followed I-35 through those towns, it probably wouldn’t make stops there.

“These trains will travel in excess of 95 mph,” he said. “More than likely, the rate would be closer to 150 mph, similar to the Japanese and European bullet trains. ... They don’t stop in every little town.”

If the Rochester route is ultimately chosen, it’s possible that any passenger rail that comes to Mankato could connect with the high-speed train in Rochester.

Hentges and Morrow will also be pushing Mankato as a destination for a direct passenger rail connection to the Twin Cities. While the statewide rail plan won’t be the final word on which communities get rail service, it will give some cities a leg up, Morrow said.

“This plan won’t lay out what the routes are, but it certainly will make recommendations,” Morrow said, referring to the routes that will undergo more expensive environmental and design studies. “I have to think the Mankato to Twin Cities route is one of the routes getting studied.”

That belief was bolstered when preliminary demand estimates put the Mankato route in the middle category for potential ridership when comparing various proposals to connecting the metro area to regional hubs.

Hentges said demand for passenger rail here exceeded some other routes partly because of the high number of students from the Twin Cities attending colleges in Mankato and St. Peter. And there’s a relatively high number of commuters living here and working in the metro area, or living in the metro and working at Mankato-area colleges and businesses.

The third area of interest for Mankato involves potential funding for freight rail improvements. The statewide rail plan will identify bottlenecks in the movement of freight in Minnesota, with the goal of targeting those for future improvements.

Mankato officials are hoping that could mean a better rail corridor through the city, both to improve safety and reduce the noise associated with whistles when freight trains reach the frequent street crossings.

The Union Pacific and the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, which is now owned by the Canadian Pacific, share the Mankato corridor and are making major investments in rail line improvements near here, Hentges said.

“They’re talking millions of dollars on either side of Mankato to upgrade the track,” he said.

At some point, the incentive is going to exist to improve the movement of trains through the city, and state and federal funding could help make for the safe and whistle-free corridor Mankato officials have been seeking.

“The railroads still have to invest a pile of money to ultimately make it happen,” Hentges said.