With stations to be constructed, a contract needed to build new coaches and locomotives to be bought, Tim Yantos, Mary Richardson and Ken Stevens have a clear idea where the Northstar commuter rail line is headed.

But as the engine that has driven this train for more than a decade, the three want to make sure the $320 million project remains on its original track. That's why Richardson, the St. Paul attorney who put together a joint-powers agreement in 1996 to make Northstar possible, refers to the 40-mile line from Minneapolis to Big Lake as "an interim step."

"We'd like to see an extension to St. Cloud and another extension to Cambridge," said Yantos, executive director of the Northstar corridor project.

Stevens, a retired Hennepin County official who serves as the project's oversite consultant, added: "There were so many times we said, 'This project could be dead tomorrow.' It's very much alive now and there's no reason to stop in Big Lake."

Northstar, which received $156.8 million in federal funding this month, is on line to open in 2009. But Stevens warns that funding sources for transit must continue to be developed on community and state levels if the line is to realize its potential.

Funding from more than 30 cities along or near the line, plus money from rail authorities in Hennepin, Anoka and Sherburne counties will be needed to extend Northstar to St. Cloud, Stevens said.

Yantos, who was once told that putting together a 40-mile light-rail system would be too expensive, agreed.

"The savings of time and fuel, the elimination of congestion on the roads, and the positive impact on the environment by moving large groups of people with a single engine show how cost-effective a commuter rail line will be," Yantos said. "I'd love to see those savings go beyond Big Lake."

Small start, big idea

Yantos, who grew up in Columbia Heights, admits readily that he is "not a transportation planner." But the more he studied the benefits of moving people by rail in other parts of the country, the more he became convinced that commuter rail made sense for the northwest corridor, from Minneapolis to St. Cloud.

Not long after, in 1997, a Minnesota Department of Transportation study concluded that the seven-county metro area would support the idea of a rail line and that the Northstar corridor along Hwy. 10 had the most potential, recalled Stevens, who as the oversite consultant watches how money is spent.

Stevens had been Hennepin County's light-rail director since the late 1980s. It was around the time that he retired from the county, in 1998, that Yantos asked whether he'd work with him. At one point, he said, he, Yantos and Richardson made up the entire Northstar staff.

Richardson is the line's deputy director of legal and intergovernmental affairs -- which means she helps develop community involvement while addressing legal issues.

She is now trying to finalize an agreement that will allow Fridley to build a station. When Burlington Northern Santa Fe agreed to provide track for Northstar, the agreement did not acknowledge a stop in Fridley, Richardson said. The Anoka County Regional Rail Authority agreed in November to take over the responsibility of paying for a tunnel needed for the proposed station, while the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority tries to acquire a 10-acre piece of land east of the tracks.

"Fridley, like the others where stations are being built, is going to be dramatically changed," Richardson said.

And, as in the case of other cities with stops along the line, anticipation is swelling, Richardson said.

"Elk River had an early vision, well before Northstar was funded, and that station's going to be exciting," she said. "Anoka, keeping with the small-town feel they have, is looking toward a transit village with an historic nature.

"All of this was Tim's vision, and it's all very positive. By going to Big Lake, we're getting something in the ground. But it's an interim step."

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419