[WOBBLY BOB]

The NLX line, projected just two years ago to cost $360 million, has doubled in price, according to latest estimates. While the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has backed away from the near $1 billion price tag it predicted 10 months ago, the 155-mile high-speed line is expected to cost between $615 million and $700 million if completed by 2014, Ongaro said from Duluth.

Gambling is fun...when it's other people's money.

[cripplecreek]

You aren’t nearly as much fun as Boxcar Willy was. LOL

Now tell us that we’re all socialists for not wanting to fund this crap.

[MediaMole]

Who would ride a train from Minneapolis to Duluth? How would they get around once they got there?

Someone needs to tell politicians that trains do come in HO scale. I’m sure we could raise some money to build them a train layout in the capitol basement. It would cost a lot less than $700 million.

[mountn man]

Waiting for a reply from Boxcar Willie in ...3...2...1...

[Cicero]

Hey, why not just build a high-speed rail line from Minneapolis to St. Paul?

I’d be willing to lead the project for a mere $700 million.

And my special proviso is that only the inhabitants of Minneapolis and St. Paul get taxed.

[GonzoGOP]

They missed the Aug. 1 deadline for a $55 million federal grant application, opting instead to focus on completing a new environmental analysis. That study will cost at least $300,000, experts say.

And later in the article they claim it could go as high as $500,000 just for environmental studies. So you are half a million in the red, and you haven't laid one tie, bought one piece of rolling stock or built one station.

Later in the article we learn that the railroad's route is incompatible with commuter traffic, the one part of passenger rail that makes economic sense. The whole article proves that the goal of many of these rail projects isn't to provide transportation, but to create jobs for government parasites. If it was really about transportation it would be running low maintenance cost mid speed trains through areas with established high passenger density. Instead it is running maintenance intensive high speed trains from places where nobody lives to places nobody wants to go.

[kidd]

I grew up in Bloomington. In 1971 (4th grade) we had an overnight fieldtrip to Duluth. We took Amtrak from Minneapolis to Duluth. Except for our group of 4th graders, teachers and chapperones, I don’t recall any other passengers on the two-car train.

That Amtrak service no longer exists.

There is a reason that it no longer exists. There wasn’t any demand for it.

[sionnsar]

ping

[Buckeye McFrog]

...because there are just SOOOOOO MANY PEOPLE who can’t WAIT go get to Duluth! /sarc

(The only guy I know who ever went there was my uncle, and that’s only because the Coast Guard stationed him there)

[tickles]

Why don’t they really ask themselves why anyone in the twin cities who is going ‘up north’ (most likely to their cabins) would take the train? Most of the traffic going up that way probably takes place on weekends and I very much doubt someone going to their cabin is going to take the the train to Duluth, if that was the case how do they get from there to the cabin????? Inquiring minds want to know.