(The following story by Tom Peters appeared on The Chronicle Herald website on November 7.)
HALIFAX, N.S. — As CN waits for the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to approve its proposal to acquire a small rail line around Chicago, the deadline for the purchase from the U.S. Steel Corp. is drawing near.
The Halifax Port Authority, which promotes its rail connection to the American Midwest, and port customers who ship products through Chicago to the Midwest and other U.S. destinations on CN are keeping their fingers crossed the sale goes through.
CN made an offer to U.S. Steel in 2007 to purchase a major portion of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway. CN offered $300 million for 316 kilometres of track that encircles Chicago from Waukegan, Ill., on the north to Joliet, Ill., on the west and Gary, Ind., on the southeast.
The railway said it would spend another $100 million on infrastructure improvements and $60 million on environmental mitigation to address concerns in communities where the train goes through.
CN tracks pass through Chicago, which is a heavily congested region. Jim Kvedaras, CN’s senior manager of public and government affairs in Chicago, said Thursday it takes more than 24 hours to move a train across metropolitan Chicago and with the acquisition of the EJ&E Railway, that time could be reduced considerably.
But the U.S. transportation board has not decided whether to approve the sale. The deadline for the offer to U.S. Steel is Dec. 31, and Mr. Kvedaras said U.S. Steel does not seem interested in extending the deadline if the board has not made its decision by then. A spokesman at the transportation board could not say Thursday when a decision would be released.
Mr. Kvedaras said there remains public opposition to the proposed purchase, based mainly on environmental concerns, and that the Surface Transportation Board has ordered an environmental assessment.
“There is a number of very vocal, very organized communities expressing opposition to the prospect of change in their communities,” he said.
“The environmental benefits of the transaction to the overall Chicago region are positive,” E. Hunter Harrison, CN president and CEO, said in a release. “For every community along the EJ&E line, roughly double that number in more densely populated areas along CN lines in Chicago would see decreased rail operations, meaning less pollution, fewer idling trains and fewer blocked crossings, resulting in a better quality of life for residents of these 60 communities.”
He said CN’s comprehensive voluntary mitigation plan addresses all significant adverse environmental effects.
“Part of our discussion we share is to keep this in its proper perspective,” Mr. Kvedaras said.
“If the needs for transportation are going to continue to go up, and every planning agency and every study I have read indicates nothing but, and if the nation’s and continent’s railroads are not allowed to take part of that burden, the only alternative is more and more truck traffic coming through these very communities that are so outspoken against the prospect of allowing trains to handle it.”