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'r~raft Status Report on the Northstar Commuter Rail Project. June 7, 200f <br /> <br />delay and transit time. The DPM modeling showed <br />that adding the capacity improvements proposed by <br />MLM would reduce freight delay by 22.4 percent and <br />reduce total transit time by 6.5 percent. (D. Mahle <br />memo dated May 4, 2000.) <br /> <br />(vi) On May 30, 2000, a meeting with BNSF and <br />MLM was held at BNSF headquarters in Fort Worth, <br />TX to discuss results of MLM's most recent <br />simulations of the Northstar Corridor. <br /> <br />(vii) BNSF and MLM continued to meet and <br />exchange memoranda regarding disagreement with <br />model inputs, assumptions, dispatching, operations, <br />and physical plant. One additional important factor is <br />that BNSF continued to simulate using DPM version <br />5.27 while MLM used the latest DPM version 5.37. <br />The earlier version used by BNSF was no longer <br />supported by the vendor due to improvements made <br />to later releases. The earlier versions was therefore <br />not available to MLM because it had become <br />obsolete. The later version was available to BNSF, <br />however, they chose not to use it. <br /> <br />3. Final Phase of NCDA Capacity Negotiations <br />The final phase of the NCDA~s capacity negotiation occurred in the <br />Fall of 2000. The intent of this phase to reach a level of policy <br />agreement over the necessary improvements and to settle the <br />disagreements between the modelers by closing out the capacity <br />modeling exercises. The following summarizes the steps taken and <br />the exchange of positions between the NCDA and BNSF. <br /> <br />Results <br />(a) November 17, 2000. Meeting at BNSF in Chicago with DJ <br />Mitchell and Pat Casler. BNSF agreed to use Mainline <br />Management list of 14 - 15 projects as the "base". DJ Mitchell <br />agreed that we need to close out the capacity modeling, but <br />indicated that there were additional improvements that were likely <br />to be necessary at the Minneapolis Junction. <br /> <br />(b) Telephone conversation between DJ Mitchell and Tim <br />Yantos. DJ said that the NCDA did not need to worry about any <br />improvements north of Northtown. The NCDA should focus on <br /> <br />Northstar Corridor Development Authority 33 <br /> <br /> <br />