(The following article by Jon Hilkevitch was posted on the Chicago Tribune website on October 25.)
CHICAGO — A major freight railroad is threatening to pull the tracks from under Amtrak’s plans for expanded service in Illinois starting next week, officials said Tuesday.
Amtrak brokered an agreement in July with the Canadian National Railway Co. to operate two more Amtrak trains round-trip each day on the Chicago-to-St. Louis route, bringing the total to five trips; and one additional round-trip between Chicago and Carbondale, increasing total trips to three daily.
The CN informed Amtrak on Friday that the railroad is now allowing access for only one extra round-trip train daily each to St. Louis and Carbondale–and only for one year, instead of running open ended as stated in the agreement.
The Saluki run to Carbondale operates almost exclusively on CN-owned tracks and the Lincoln Service to St. Louis operates on CN tracks for 37 miles between Chicago and Joliet.
The new Amtrak service is scheduled to begin Monday, but the last-minute decision by the Montreal-based CN to curtail some of the additional access granted to Amtrak puts the new schedules in doubt.
“We have an agreement and our intention is to run those trains,” said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. He said Amtrak would go to court seeking an emergency order if the CN did not abide by the deal.
CN has told Amtrak that the CN official who approved the expanded access did not have the authority to make the agreement, railroad sources said. CN officials say there is not enough track capacity on the two lines to operate the additional Amtrak trains without inconveniencing other freight railroads that also use the CN tracks.
Illinois this year doubled state funding to Amtrak, from $12 million to $24 million annually, in response to increasing ridership on the passenger trains statewide.