With the state government’s budget forecast to run a surplus of $17.6 billion dollars to June 2025, there will, no doubt, be all sorts of proposals put forward for how…
The Minnesota Senate voting to prohibit planning for the Northern Lights Express, a resurrection of the old passenger rail service between the Twin Cities and Duluth, wasn’t the only consequential…
MPR News reports: The Minnesota Senate voted Monday to prohibit planning for a new passenger rail service between the Twin Cities and Duluth, which is known as the Northern Lights…
In 1985, Amtrak ended all passenger rail service to Duluth. It did so because hardly anyone was using the service anymore. Now, nearly 40 years on, there are proposals to…
In 1985, Amtrak ended all passenger rail service to Duluth. It did so because hardly anyone was using the service anymore. Now, nearly 40 years on, there are proposals to…
This op ed appeared in the Duluth News Tribune on April 19th, 2021 Hopes are high among some that the $2 trillion President Joe Biden intends to spend with his…
NLX shows how pork barrel projects get sidetracked but rarely derailed. Biden's $2 trillion grab bag of infrastructure projects before Congress gives meritless projects like NLX new life.
Taxpayers would spend $17 million a year to subsidize Duluth train.
For years backward-looking bureaucrats and local officials have sought to revive the failed passenger rail line between the Twin Cities and Duluth. But a legislative hearing in Duluth this week…
Amtrak prepares to soak Minnesota taxpayers.
Minnesota taxpayers dodged another bullet with the collapse of a bonding bill at the state legislature this session. Among the pet projects thankfully left in limbo? The so-called Northern Lights…
Most Minnesotans have likely never heard of the proposed $550 million Northern Lights Express (NLX) passenger rail line from the Twin Cities to Duluth-Superior. Yet MnDOT has been quietly laying…
Most Minnesotans have likely never heard of the proposed $550 million Northern Lights Express (NLX) passenger rail line from the Twin Cities to Duluth-Superior. Yet MnDOT has been quietly laying…
The Star Tribune editorial board carries considerable weight as the voice of Minnesota’s biggest media outlet. But the paper’s recent endorsement of bringing back the failed Amtrak Twin Cities to…
Old rail lines never die. They keep chugging along, powered by just enough taxpayer funding for the required environmental and operational studies to maintain bureaucratic momentum over the years. Then…
Amtrak’s operating loss for 2018 came in at $168 million–and they’re proud of it. Never mind that the passenger line would be even more in the red if the cost…
Wasteful new passenger rail projects have hit a wall under the Trump administration. But a temporary timeout from power in Washington never stops the elites at the Met Council and…
The deadly crash of the Amtrak Cascades line passenger train south of Seattle this week shines the spotlight on the government agency’s fatal ineptitude–again. Amtrak’s new CEO Richard Anderson, well…
MnDOT continues to move forward on plans to bring back passenger train service between the Twin Cities and Duluth-Superior. It’s an idea that’s already come and gone years ago. The…
It’s a train that only state and county bureaucrats from the Twin Cities to Duluth have been riding for more than a decade now. Northern Lights Express, NLX for short,…