Northern Lights Express
The Northern Lights Express (NLX) is a planned higher-speed rail service that would run 155 miles (249 km) between Minneapolis and Duluth primarily in the U.S. state of Minnesota. A portion of the proposed line would run through neighboring Wisconsin to serve Duluth's "Twin Port" of Superior. Plans are to upgrade an existing BNSF Railway freight line to allow trains to travel at up to 90 miles per hour (145 km/h). The train service is said to provide an alternative to traveling Interstate 35 between Duluth and the Twin Cities or to other destinations along the line such as the casino in Hinckley.
| Northern Lights Express | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | |||
| Status | Planning (pending preliminary engineering phase) | ||
| Owner | BNSF | ||
| Locale | Minnesota and Wisconsin, United States | ||
| Termini | |||
| Stations | 6 (proposed) | ||
| Service | |||
| Type | Inter-city/commuter rail, higher-speed rail | ||
| Services | 4 | ||
| Operator(s) | Amtrak (?) | ||
| Ridership | 700,000 annually (projected) | ||
| History | |||
| Opened | TBA | ||
| Technical | |||
| Line length | 155 miles (249 km) | ||
| Character | Surface | ||
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | ||
| Operating speed | Maximum: 90 mph (145 km/h) Average: 60 mph (97 km/h) | ||
| |||
The proposed service's trains would mostly follow the same route as Amtrak's former North Star, except that it would originate in Minneapolis rather than neighboring Saint Paul, and it is planned to stop at a suburban Twin Cities station (probably constructed at Metro Transit's Foley Boulevard bus station). The proposed route follows part of the Northstar commuter rail route which opened in 2009, and would contain the entirety of the proposed Bethel Corridor commuter route, although that service is not expected to be operational by the time recent estimates of when NLX might open.