A bill directing the Minnesota Department of Transportation to study extending passenger rail service from the Twin Cities to Fargo and establish a new line to Kansas City has found new life.

The measure, which failed to pass the House Transportation Committee last month, has been rolled into the Senate omnibus transportation bill with details to be worked out in a conference committee made up of members of both chambers.

If passed, the bill would require MnDOT to apply for a $1 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for planning and development of the two intercity passenger rail corridors.

“We are extremely optimistic,” said Brian Nelson, with the rail advocacy group All Aboard Minnesota. “This could be a significant piece of legislation to move passenger rail service forward in Minnesota.”

The effort has the backing of the St. Paul City Council, which earlier this year passed a resolution supporting the study.

Rail ridership locally is surging.

In fiscal year 2025, just under 200,000 travelers got on or off Amtrak trains at St. Paul’s Union Depot. That marked a 58% increase over the previous fiscal year and was the highest ridership in the Twin Cities by far in the past 15 years.

Until last year, the high was 128,658 riders in 2010 when the Amtrak station was on Transfer Road in St. Paul’s Midway area, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

A record 21,666 passengers boarded or alighted in Red Wing in fiscal 2025 and traffic in Winona jumped from 17,154 to nearly 23,700, the Bureau said.

Statewide, more than 264,600 people took Amtrak, another high-water mark, according to the data going back to 2010.

Nationally, Amtrak achieved a record in fiscal year 2025 by providing 34.5 million trips in the 12 months that ended in Sept. 30, 2025.

Much of Minnesota’s growth has been due to the popular Borealis, which offers daily trips between St. Paul and Chicago.

The route, which debuted in May 2024, was projected to serve 155,000 riders a year. By July 4 last year, 250,000 passengers had hopped on, Amtrak said.

However, Nelson said, Borealis has not siphoned off riders from Amtrak’s other route serving Minnesota, the Empire Builder. The Empire Builder, which runs from Chicago to Portland and Seattle, serves the same three stations as Borealis along with St. Cloud, Staples and Detroit Lakes.

Borealis “has not cannibalized the Empire Builder,” Nelson said.

“From every angle, Borealis is attracting new riders.”

That creates the impetus and need for MnDOT to study additional routes to serve the state, Nelson said.

Other Midwestern states, such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Kansas, have applications for additional lines submitted to FRA. Amtrak held a webinar last week to solicit input on a proposal to extend its Hiawatha line that runs from Chicago to Milwaukee west to Madison. Stations along the line’s extension would be part of larger Milwaukee-Madison-Eau Claire and Twin Cities study, Amtrak said.

“All these states have invested in passenger rail and are seeing tremendous success,” Nelson said. “We need to be a part of that in Minnesota.”

Another rail line still in the works is the long talked about high-speed Northern Lights Express between the Twin Cities and Duluth. The first phase of planning for 152-mile route has been completed and is before the FRA. Approval that grants permission to move on to the second phase could come soon, Nelson said.

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