By Janet Moore, Minneapolis Star Tribune; October 15, 2020
After several dozen passengers boarded the 4:27 p.m. Northstar Thursday at the Target Field stop, the locomotive edged forward and departed right on time.
If it weren’t for passengers wearing telltale masks, it could have been any other fall afternoon. But ridership on Northstar, a commuter train that connects downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake while running through the Twin Cities’ northern suburbs, has plunged about 95% since the COVID-19 outbreak.