ST. PAUL - Gov. Mark Dayton has asked federal authorities to include Minnesota and city leaders as they investigate a plan by two railroads to connect their tracks in the northwestern Twin Cities.
BNSF Railway Co. and the Canadian Pacific say they want to build a track so trains headed east on CP tracks may turn south in Crystal onto BNSF tracks. The tracks now cross, but do not connect.
Dayton wrote to the Surface Transportation Board on Thursday that the tracks are "lightly constructed and maintained."
The governor said the plan would reroute trains hauling North Dakota oil as well as other freight through several western suburbs as well as into Minneapolis.
The governor, who held nearly a dozen oil rail safety summits last year, told the federal board that he wants cities and Minnesota officials included in decisions about the new track.
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The mile-long track would run past Theodore Wirth Park, one of the Twin Cities' largest green spaces.
BNSF says it will comply with any federally required environmental review. The connection was proposed to relieve rail congestion, which has been a problem for many Minnesota rail users in the past year.
