Why don’t Amtrak trains from St. Paul to Chicago stop in Madison, Wis.?

Amid the celebration last spring of Amtrak’s new Borealis passenger service between St. Paul and Chicago loomed a potent question: Why doesn’t the train stop in Madison, Wis.?

It’s true the route for the Borealis and the long-distance Empire Builder doesn’t include a station at Wisconsin’s capital, the state’s second-largest city and home to the University of Wisconsin’s main campus. The closest stop — in Columbus, Wis. — is some 30 miles away.

But the prospect of passenger rail service from the Twin Cities to Madison gained momentum last December after the federal government awarded the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) a grant to study the possibility.

The study, now underway, will determine what improvements are necessary to link new passenger rail service to Madison through Eau Claire and other towns, and an estimate of how much it might cost, according to WisDOT spokesperson John DesRivieres.

Such a project “would require substantial track, bridge, crossing and station improvements that would take several years to plan, design, fund and construct,” he said. Still, train advocates are hopeful.

“We believe that the more routes offered, and the more frequent the service, that the number of riders will grow,” said Nona Hill, president of All Aboard Wisconsin, a public transportation advocacy group.

The Badger State received $2.5 million from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was approved by Congress in 2021 to study four new routes across the state.

In addition, $500,000 was awarded to Eau Claire County to study passenger rail service to St. Paul’s Union Depot using an existing freight corridor. It’s unclear what other cities in Minnesota and Wisconsin would be part of a future route.

The idea of linking the two Big Ten college towns isn’t new: Groups such as the West Central Rail Coalition, consisting of business, education and government leaders in Eau Claire, have been pushing for expansion for more than two decades.

Susan Foote-Martin, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers, said the new Borealis service bodes well for the expansion of rail service throughout Wisconsin. “The Borealis is doing better than anyone hoped and we couldn’t be happier,” she said.

Amtrak’s Borealis train features two daily trips between St. Paul and Chicago, in addition to Empire Builder service between Chicago and Seattle/Portland through Union Depot.

Ridership on the Borealis for the first full month of service totaled more than 18,500 passengers — about 300 passengers daily on eastbound and westbound trains, according to Amtrak, which was encouraged by the results.

“The [Borealis] ridership numbers we have seen so far confirm our belief and we expect this trend to continue as the service matures and we head into the peak summer travel season,” Ray Lang, Amtrak’s vice president of state-supported service, said in a news release.

Colleges and universities along the Borealis route, such as Winona State University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, helped boost its ridership numbers among train-loving millennials and Gen Zers (and maybe their parents).

Likely the same would be true of service between the Twin Cities and Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus, where some 3,500 Minnesotans went to school last year. Some 4,600 students from Wisconsin attend the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. And that doesn’t include other educational institutions along the line, including the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Chippewa Valley Technical College and Northwood Technical College, among others.

“Madison is more than ready for passenger rail service,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “The excitement in the community about finally bringing Amtrak to Madison is palpable.” Passenger rail service in Madison was abandoned in 1971.

Over the past year, Madison has narrowed down the location of a possible train station to eight sites and released a 68-page study exploring the pros and cons of each one. The Madison station may need to accommodate up to 250,000 riders a year for several routes, or up to 900 daily, according to the study. The trip between Madison and the Twin Cities is expected to take about five hours.

Rhodes-Conway noted the Borealis line shows “the demand for rail service is real. A Twin Cities-Eau Claire-Madison-Milwaukee line is an obvious next step.”

But extending service between St. Paul and Madison to Milwaukee and Chicago on Amtrak’s Hiawatha line would require an expansion of the rail infrastructure north and west of Chicago to accommodate more trains. One of the federal grants extended to WisDOT calls for studying an increase in the number of round trips on the Hiawatha line.

The federal money and ensuing studies do not guarantee the new service will happen. Rail planning typically takes years and is subject to state and federal budget fluctuations, as well as political machinations.

In 2010, Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker famously turned down $810 million in federal funding from the Obama administration intended for high-speed rail service between Madison and Milwaukee.

But rail fans in Wisconsin lived to fight another day. “Getting the public out of their cars and onto a train is good for everyone,” Foote-Martin said.

“When driving on the interstate between Madison and the Twin Cities, you see a lot of traffic at all hours of the day,” and many cars have Minnesota license plates, she added, noting additional train service would prove valuable to Minnesotans and Wisconsinites alike.