(The follow storing by Andre Salles appeared on the Beacon News website on January 25.)
AURORA, Ill. — Roughly 100 Aurorans braved the cold Thursday night to voice their concerns about a potential railroad sale that could see four times as many freight trains per day come through their neighborhoods.
The Canadian National Railway Corporation is in talks to purchase the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company and divert a large number of trains from Chicago to the western suburbs.
The EJ&E line runs through the far East Side of Aurora, crossing Route 34, Liberty Street, Keating Drive, Montgomery Road and others at grade.
CN plans to add roughly 21 trains per day to the current load along the EJ&E in Aurora, upping the total to an average of 32 per day.
The Federal Surface Transportation Board has to approve the sale, but first, officials must complete an extensive study into the potential impact of the sale on local communities. The STB set up open houses in several cities along the line, but Aurora was omitted, so Mayor Tom Weisner called his own meeting to gauge resident concerns.
And they were definitely concerned.
Sam Baiardo lives in Remington Crossing, right near the tracks, and he said that even with the 11 or so trains passing his house each day now, he feels the impact.
“The noise is terrible, and the vibration shakes everything,” he said.
Heather Wolf, who lives in the Lakewood Valley subdivision, said she is concerned about how the increased train load would impact school transportation and emergency vehicles heading to Rush-Copley Medical Center. She also said she crosses those tracks every day and has had to wait for up to 10 minutes for longer, slower-moving freight trains.
Eric Gallt, the city’s new traffic engineer, listed a few more concerns the city has, including the increased load’s potential impact on the environment, on the Meridian Business Park and on the plan to bring federally regulated quiet zones to crossings on the East Side.
“We are going to see the impact of this, not the benefits,” Gallt said.
Alderman Leroy Keith, 9th Ward, was even more pointed: “I see no benefit of this sale to Canadian National to the city,” he said. “None whatsoever.”
Jim Kvedaras, spokesman for CN, said the benefits would be regional and not specific to one community. He said diverting trains from Chicago will help congestion there, and keeping traffic moving throughout the region would improve air quality throughout.
Kvedaras said CN soon would embark on its own series of meetings with local communities about the proposed sale and promised that Aurora would be a part of that.
Meanwhile, Surface Transportation Board officials are collecting questions and comments from impacted cities and towns to use in their study, and they likely will get an earful from the Aurorans at Thursday’s meeting.
If you missed the meeting and still would like to voice your opinion, you can log onto the Surface Transportation Board Web site at www.stb.dot.gov, or call them at 1-800-347-0689.