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Big Lake Station is a Northstar Line commuter rail station in Big Lake , Minnesota , located at 19691 County Road 43 , in the southeast corner of Big Lake near U . S . Highway ___MASK96___ . The station features bicycle lockers and a park and ride lot with capacity for 518 vehicles . Commute time to downtown Minneapolis from this station is about 51 minutes . This station is the northbound terminus until funding for an extension to St . Cloud is secured . In the meantime , a commuter bus branded the Northstar Link ( route 887 ) connects Big Lake with St . Cloud , stopping at the Metro Bus downtown transit center , St . Cloud State University , a commuter parking lot at Lincoln Avenue and U . S . Highway ___MASK96___ and the Coffee Cup Cafe in Becker . The bus is operated by St . Cloud Metro Bus , rather than Metro Transit . The maintenance facility for the Northstar trains was built just to the south . This station also marks the southern end of a nine - mile stretch where the BNSF mainline is just single - tracked rather than double - tracked . A second track will need to be added up to Becker to increase capacity if commuter rail is to be expanded to St . Cloud . Big Lake is a city in Sherburne County , Minnesota , United States . The population was ___MASK96___ , 060 at the 2010 census . A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population . It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population . The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses ; other common censuses include agriculture , business , and traffic censuses . The United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as " individual enumeration , universality within a defined territory , simultaneity and defined periodicity ", and recommends that population censuses be taken at least every ___MASK96___ years . United Nations recommendations also cover census topics to be collected , official definitions , classifications and other useful information to co - ordinate international practice . The Northstar Line is a commuter rail route in the US state of Minnesota . Northstar runs from Big Lake to downtown Minneapolis at Target Field using existing track and right - of - way owned by the BNSF Railway . Passenger service began on November ___MASK75___ , ___MASK87___ . The rail line serves part of the Northstar Corridor between Minneapolis and St . Cloud . Planning for the line began in 1997 when the Northstar Corridor Development Authority ( NCDA ) was formed . The corridor is mostly served by Interstate 94 and U . S . Highway 10 . Minneapolis is the county seat of Hennepin County , and larger of the Twin Cities , the 16th - largest metropolitan area in the United States , containing about 3 . ___MASK27___ million residents . As of 2015 , Minneapolis is the largest city in the state of Minnesota and 46th - largest in the United States with a population of 410 , 939 . Minneapolis and Saint Paul anchor the second - largest economic center in the Midwest , after Chicago . Minnesota ( locally ) is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States . Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U . S . state on May ___MASK31___ , 1858 , created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory . The state has a large number of lakes , and is known by the slogan " Land of 10 , 000 Lakes ". Its official motto is " L ' Étoile du Nord " ( French : " Star of the North "). Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U . S . states ; nearly 60 percent of its residents live in the Minneapolis  Saint Paul metropolitan area ( known as the " Twin Cities "), the center of transportation , business , industry , education , and government and home to an internationally known arts community . The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture ; deciduous forests in the southeast , now partially cleared , farmed and settled ; and the less populated North Woods , used for mining , forestry , and recreation . Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout . Until European settlement , Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe / Anishinaabe . During the 19th and early 20th centuries , the large majority of the European settlers emigrated from Scandinavia and Germany , and the state remains a center of Scandinavian American and German American culture . In recent decades , immigration from Asia , the Horn of Africa , and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition . Minnesota ' s standard of living index is among the highest in the United States , and the state is also among the best - educated and wealthiest in the nation . Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis . It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins , the state ' s Major League Baseball ( MLB ) franchise . It is the franchise ' s sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota . The Twins moved to Target Field for the ___MASK59___ Major League Baseball season after 28 seasons at the Hubert H . Humphrey Metrodome . It is the first facility built specifically for the Twins since the team moved to the Twin Cities in ___MASK85___ ; Metropolitan Stadium was built for the Minneapolis Millers five years before the franchise ' s first season in Minnesota , and the Metrodome was built as a multipurpose stadium for the Twins , Minnesota Vikings , and the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team . The ___MASK59___ season was the first since 1936 in which the franchise ( then known as the Washington Senators ) did not share their home stadium with an NFL team . The Twins received the certificate of occupancy from Mortenson Construction on December ___MASK34___ , ___MASK87___ . The Twins staff moved in on January 4 , ___MASK59___ . Commuter rail , also called suburban rail , is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates between a city centre , and the middle to outer suburbs beyond ___MASK17___ km ( 10 miles ) and commuter towns or other locations that draw large numbers of commuters  people who travel on a daily basis . Trains operate following a schedule , at speeds varying from ___MASK94___ to 200 km / h ( 30 to ___MASK4___ mph ). Distance charges or zone pricing may be used . The BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroad networks in North America , second to the Union Pacific Railroad ( UP ) ( its primary competitor for Western U . S . freight ), and is one of seven North American Class I railroads . It has 44 , 000 employees , of track in 28 states , and over ___MASK65___ , 000 locomotives . It has three transcontinental routes that provide rail links between the western and eastern United States . BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles in 2010 , more than any other North American railroad . The BNSF and UP have a duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western U . S . and share trackage rights over thousands of miles of track .