Planned U.S. passenger train service
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The Great River is a planned Amtrak intercity passenger train that will operate daily between Chicago, Illinois, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, via Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Service is expected to begin in 2024 under the Amtrak Midwest brand.[1]
The train will supplement the long-distance Empire Builder, serving the same stations but with higher reliability and more convenient departure times. As an extension of an existing Chicago–Milwaukee Hiawatha Service train, the Great River will double Amtrak service frequency between Milwaukee and Saint Paul.
The western part of the route will run along the bank of the Mississippi River, for which the train is named (Misi-ziibi means "Great River" in Ojibwe). The train will also cross the Wisconsin River at Wisconsin Dells, a popular tourist destination.
Background
Originally, the Twin Cities-Milwaukee-Chicago (TCMC) Corridor was operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Milwaukee Road ran numerous passenger trains from Chicago to St. Paul and beyond including the famous Twin Cities Hiawatha and Olympian Hiawatha. When Amtrak took over intercity passenger trains in 1971, only the Empire Builder continued serving the corridor. For a time, the North Coast Hiawatha and the North Star served this route as well.
As of December 2021[update], the Empire Builder continues to run daily, while the Hiawatha service runs seven additional round trips per day between Chicago and Milwaukee.[2]
The TCMC project began in 2015 after the conclusion of a feasibility report by Amtrak.[3] Based on the favorable ridership and revenue projections MnDOT led a Phase 1 study in cooperation with WisDOT, IDOT, the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority and the FRA to analyze service alternatives, infrastructure upgrades and anticipated costs. The Phase 2 study was led by WisDOT to complete the environmental review and prepare a Service Development Plan.[4] Schedule delays from Seattle to St. Paul have been cited as part of the interest in having a reliable departure time from St. Paul.[5][6]
Infrastructure upgrades for the project are required in La Crosse, La Crescent, Winona and St. Paul. The total capital cost is $53.3 million, which has been fully funded by federal grants, WisDOT and MnDOT.[7][8] The project is scheduled to begin construction in 2023 and begin operations with one train in 2023.[9] The TCMC service is anticipated to be the first phase of additional Amtrak service across Wisconsin and Minnesota with eventual extensions to Madison, Wisconsin, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota.
In a public meeting on December 1, 2022, an Amtrak representative stated that the service was expected to start by summer 2023 with the name Great River.[10] A paper by the Wisconsin Legislature's Legislative Fiscal Bureau, published on June 6, 2023, for the legislature's Joint Committee on Finance, estimated that Great River service would start in September 2023, with related construction to improve service beginning in early 2024 and ending in mid-to-late 2025.[11] However, in fall 2023 the estimated start date of the Great River slipped to 2024.[1]
In December 2023, the FRA accepted the Great River route into its Corridor Identification and Development Program. The move grants $500,000 toward studying additional frequency on the route, and prioritizes the corridor for future federal funding.[12]
Operation
The Great River train is planned to make 13 total stops from Chicago to St. Paul. Westbound, the journey will take 7 hours and 11 minutes, while it will take 7 hours 27 minutes eastbound. Each direction, the train will have a 5 minute stop in Milwaukee.[13]
The train will be not be a completely new service, but will rather extend an existing Hiawatha Service train from Milwaukee to St. Paul and back. The trains that will be extended are numbers 333 and 340. Train 333 will depart Chicago at 11:05 am and arrive St. Paul at 6:16 pm. Train 340 will depart St. Paul at 11:47 am and arrive in Chicago at 7:14 pm.[13] An eventual re-route through Madison is in the long term plans for the Great River route. This change in routing would likely follow the Wisconsin & Southern Watertown Subdivision and Canadian Pacific Kansas City's M&P Subdivision bypassing the Columbus station which has been considered the Madison stop along the route.
Ridership is projected to be 124,000 passengers per year in 2024.[7]
An extension of the route to Target Field station in Minneapolis, and possibly St. Cloud has been proposed.[14]
