Passenger Trains > St. Paul Union Depot Railfan Park!

St. Paul Union Depot opening railfan park.
TRAINS.com
October 31, 2013.

> ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority,
> owner of the reopened St. Paul Union Depot, is opening a railfan park
> at the east end of the property. Paul Nahurski, Project Manager for
> the authority, tells Trains News Wire he expects the park will be
> completed next week.
>
> Nahurski says the park is designed with railroad fans in mind. It is
> slightly elevated to make viewing trains easier. While the Union
> Depot charges a fee for parking immediately adjacent to the park, a
> multi-use trail will connect it to the depot, so fans can walk or
> bike in. There is also street parking available.

Story (Trains.com subscription reqd.):

St. Paul Union Depot opening railfan park.

And yet, there is still no way for Amtrak to actually use the station. All that money spent and they are apparently still trying to figure out a crossover and signalling for ONE train a day in each direction. Should just keep Midway in operation as they have to switch out the CHI-MSP coach there in the summer and "sigh" those damned private cars that some folks on here apparently think are the bane of Amtrak timekeeping.

MWP in STL

For that one train a day, the switches and signalling systems are way more complex than you think. They have to deal with five different entities: Amtrak, BNSF, CP, UP, and the FRA. Anyone on this list knows how dealing with just one railroad can be, imagine all these! The entire area is being rebuilt with CTC switches, tracks are being moved around, and they are at the whim of the railroads in terms of getting everything put in and connected. When its done it will benefit both Amtrak and the freight railroads.

I'm with you on the continuing stop at Midway though.

Will it be as bad a situation to get the EB in and out of SPUD as it is to get the Cardinal/Hoosier State between Illinois and Indiana ?

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Will it be as bad a situation to get the EB in and
> out of SPUD as it is to get the Cardinal/Hoosier
> State between Illinois and Indiana ?

====================================================================

It could be. The train would have to cross an active Union Pacific line twice, before and
after the station stop; and the junction immediately east of St. Paul Union Depot can get busy.
I can easily imagine the junction being tied up for heavy traffic and a UP train blocking the
station access.

Fortunately the BNSF main at the station is 2MT so the dispatcher can, if practical, route the
Empire Builder on the main that is nearest the station. If it were Double Track, the eastbound
would have to cross over the opposite main to access the station.

The UP issue at the west end of the station could have been totally avoided had the trackage been
planned so the station lead tied into BNSF farther west, but I understand property reacquisition
cost would have been too high for the limited benefit to one Amtrak train.

GenePoon Wrote:
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> Fortunately the BNSF main at the station is 2MT so
> the dispatcher can, if practical, route the
> Empire Builder on the main that is nearest the
> station. If it were Double Track, the eastbound
> would have to cross over the opposite main to
> access the station.
>
> The UP issue at the west end of the station could
> have been totally avoided had the trackage been
> planned so the station lead tied into BNSF farther
> west, but I understand property reacquisition
> cost would have been too high for the limited
> benefit to one Amtrak train.

The SPUD trackage at the west end ties into CP's Merriam Park Subdivision, not the BNSF. The only way for the westbound EB to use the BNSF would be to come back out the east end of the depot. Doing that you could use the UP to reach the BNSF at Seventh St. Interlocking. At Seventh St. there is a powered switch for trains to go west towards either the BNSF Midway Sub, BNSF St. Paul Sub or UP's Altoona Sub. Also at Seventh St. Interlocking there is a power-locked switch to go EB on Main 2 of BNSF's St. Paul Sub towards West Hoffman Interlocking. Currently(at least as of last weekend) the section of the UP's West Curve trackage was still unbonded east of the switch allowing EB traffic off the UP Mankato Sub to access this trackage. All the power switches and the UP's diamond crossing of CP's Merriam Park Sub tracks alongside the depot are controlled by CP's River Dispatcher(in other words all power operated switches at the depot). You can clearly see this on ATCS Monitor with the BNSF Twin Cities layout operating. The layout shows all BNSF and CP trackage in the Twin Cities, plus the small amount of UP trackage that they use to navigate across the Twin Cities. The trains that are the only regular users of the power-locked switch at Seventh St. are CP #810 and CP #811 the Pet Coke trains from the refinery at Roseport to the powerplant in Indiana on the INRD.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/13 09:21 by SOO6617.

So much for cooperation among the railroads...

is there an up to date track schematic for the station area ... google hasn't updated it's satellite image yet for the area ... still shows early stages of construction at the station

I thought I read somewhere that when everything is done BNSF is going to dispatch everything in and near the station. I could be wrong though.

calzephyr48 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So much for cooperation among the railroads...

If the three dispatchers involved didn't cooperate well, things would congeal faster than quick-setting concrete. It seems to me that BNSF's East Hump Dispatcher might very well be the hardest Dispatching job on the BNSF system, dealing with five other Dispatchers controlling entry/exit from his territory, crew changes at his busiest interlocking, three yards immediately adjacent to the same interlocking, trains from five different railroads plus Amtrak traversing his territory. Trains with priorities ranging from Amtrak and Z-trains down to lowly yard transfers and local freights.

What will we Trainorders folks talk about when the station is finally open and everything goes OK?

Miami and Denver