Amtrak’s Borealis is lighting up the passenger rail scene, carrying so many riders that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is already studying whether to add a second daily round trip on the new Chicago-Milwaukee-Twin Cities route.
But it almost wasn’t the “Borealis.” The line, which runs partly along the mighty Mississippi, was on track to be called the Great River during its planning stages.
The body of Minnesota and Wisconsin officials advocating for the route has been known as the Great River Rail Commission since 2019, when it changed its name from the Minnesota High-Speed Rail Commission. Amtrak had even started the process of reserving the rights to “Great River,” says Wisconsin rail chief Lisa Stern.
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But Stern says the Minnesota Department of Transportation – which led the initial planning and is helping to pay for the line – wanted to own the route name, leading to the switch.
Owning the name gives the state more marketing flexibility, because “there are Amtrak standards that must be followed when using their trademarked names,” a WisDOT spokesperson explains.
Amtrak owns the names of all of its long-distance routes, including the Empire Builder, which stops in Milwaukee and St. Paul on its way from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.
Those routes are federally funded, while states help bear the costs of medium-range routes like the Borealis. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois are sharing the new route’s expenses.
A list of Amtrak trademarks shows that the national passenger railroad owns most of the state-supported route names, including the Chicago-to-Milwaukee Hiawatha.
The Borealis is one of three state-supported routes with a locally owned name, along with Northern California’s Capitol Corridor service and the Boston-to-Maine Downeaster.
Minnesota DOT spokeswoman Julie Bartkey confirms Minnesota is moving to trademark the Borealis name, but neither she nor Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari would comment on the rest of Stern’s account. Bartkey, Magliari and Great River Rail Commission spokesman Casper Hill say their agencies are working together to promote the shiny new service.
“We feel the Borealis is a great fit for a train that goes to Minnesota,” Bartkey says.
In fact, it’s such a great fit that it seems to echo another Minnesota train name: the Northern Lights Express, a planned Minneapolis-to-Duluth route with a stop in Superior.
Bartkey didn’t respond to a question about whether it might be just a tad redundant to name two train routes after the same natural phenomenon.
