(The following story by Elisabeth Kilpatrick appeared on the Southtown Star website on December 23.)
CHICAGO — Mokena will receive nearly $500,000 to pay for noise mitigation efforts and other concessions from Canadian National Railway under an agreement approved Monday night by village trustees.
The agreement is one of several that Canadian National has negotiated recently with towns, including Frankfort and Chicago Heights, that will be impacted by CN’s looming merger with the EJ&E Railroad, whose freight line encircles the Chicago area from Gary to Waukegan.
About a mile of the EJ&E line runs through Mokena’s southern tip, and the village shares two rail crossings with Frankfort at 116th Avenue and Wolf Road.
If CN’s proposed purchase of EJ&E gets federal approval, as expected, the number of freight trains coming through the crossings each day would increase from six to 28.
As part of its mitigation agreement with Mokena, CN has promised the village $150,000 in cash for noise mitigation and will build for about $300,000 an 8-foot-high berm along the tracks from 116th Avenue to the western end of the village.
CN also will pay for quiet zones (where trains will be forbidden from sounding their horns), will work with local emergency responders to avoid traffic jams and will upgrade equipment to protect against derailments, according to the agreement.