The line opened in 2009 with five MP36PH-3C locomotives and seventeen Bombardier BiLevel Coach cars. Each passenger car has about 140 seats and room for 355 when full with standees. The coaches have two doors on either side. Upon the opening, Metro Transit immediately announced that a sixth locomotive was being acquired from the Utah Transit Authority's FrontRunner service in the Salt Lake City area and a lease agreement was soon signed. Typical weekday operation requires five trains, each consisting of one locomotive and three or four coaches. A single train is used for weekend service, making three round trips each day. The platforms are only designed for five-car trains, so longer trains would require additional construction. Metro Transit did begin experimenting in April 2010 with six-car trains for taking riders to and from weekend Twins games at Target Field. These trains overhang the platform at either end and only open one door on each of the end cars. In May, trains serving Twins games grew to eight cars, with some completely overhanging the platforms so some riders would have to board and then walk from one car to another. By June, Metro Transit had decided to purchase the sixth locomotive it had leased from UTA due to high leasing costs and the need to have an extra locomotive for when others are being repaired or inspected. A $10.1 million contingency fund built into the original cost of the service provided $2.85 million for buying the locomotive and repainting it in Northstar livery. At Target Field Station, the parallel rail lines of the old Great Northern Railway (north side track now BNSF) and the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway (south side track now Union Pacific) travel eastbound past the Federal Reserve Bank, the site of the old Minneapolis Great Northern Depot, across the Mississippi River on the Minneapolis BNSF Rail Bridge and then across Nicollet Island. At a wye, the route turns northwest in the GN East side line, which then joins the parallel ex-Northern Pacific main line. The ex-Great Northern and ex-Northern Pacific lines are merged into BNSF and this is now the BNSF Northern Transcon (transcontinental) line. The route travels north through the Northtown Classification Yards, over Interstate 694 and makes its first stop at 61st Avenue in Fridley at the yard limit of Northtown, where it enters BNSF's Staples Subdivision. The double track line continues past the current Foley Boulevard park-and-ride bus station, which is planned to be a future Northstar station and turns northwest at Coon Creek Junction, where the old GN route to Duluth (now BNSF's Hinckley Subdivision) splits off and heads straight north. The current Coon Rapids station is behind the Riverdale shopping center by Round Lake Boulevard and new stations were also built in Anoka, Elk River, and Big Lake. The Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway had local services from Minneapolis to all of the cities currently served by Northstar up through the early 20th century. One Fridley station was about a mile north of the current stop, at Mississippi Boulevard. There possibly was a stop shared by GN and NP at Coon Creek Junction. There were at least three stations built in Anoka over the years, and two stations in Elk River and Big Lake, with both cities having one stop for each railroad. The current fleet is: 6 MPI MP36PH-3C split between 12 Bombardier BiLevel Coach cars, and 6 Bombardier BiLevel Cab Cars.
