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Draft Status Report on the Northstar Commuter Rail Project. June 7, 2001 <br /> <br />consolidated list of fifteen required improvements for <br />the 2003 Freight/AmtraldCommuter Rail System. <br /> <br />(ii) On December 1, 1999, MLM issued an Interim <br />Report Capacity Simulation for the 1998 and 2003 <br />Base case between E. St. Cloud and Minneapolis. <br />MLM found that the addition of the capacity upgrades <br />(BNSF list of 15) proposed by BNSF would improve <br />overall freight transit time by 8.8 percent and reduce <br />freight delay by 30.2 percent. MLM stated, "The <br />freight performance improvements are an indication <br />that the capacity enhancement list provided by BNSF <br />is more extensive than required to mitigate the effects <br />of commuter operation or freight mobility across the <br />network." <br /> <br />(iii) On February 18, 2000, MLM issued a full <br />report on their capacity simulations for the Northstar <br />Corridor. The conclusion was that seven projects <br />included in the BNSF list could be eliminated while <br />still improving the overall functionality and capacity of <br />the corridor for freight and the proposed commuter <br />rail schedule. <br /> <br />(iv) On March 14, 2000, BNSF responded to the <br />MLM report. After several meetings and discussions, <br />BNSF concluded that the simulation program (RAILS) <br />utilized by MLM could not be effectively analyzed by <br />BNSF nor offered valid comparison to the Dispatch <br />Planing Model (DPM) utilized by BNSF. BNSF further <br />suggested that it would be possible to compare and <br />reconcile the two studies if MLM were to model the <br />project with DPM. (BNSF letter from Larry Hahn to <br />David Mahle, MLM dated March 14, 2000.) NCDA <br />agreed to model the network using DPM. (April 25, <br />2000, letter from Tim Yantos to D.J. Mitchell, BNSF.) <br /> <br />(v) On May 4, 2000, MLM reported preliminary <br />results of the DPM computer simulations of the 2003 <br />freight only and 2003 freight and commuter rail <br />service. As expected, the DPM results using the <br />same improvements MLM had previously modeled in <br />RAILS, showed even greater improvement in freight <br /> <br />Northstar Corridor Development Authority 32 <br /> <br /> <br />