(The following story by Andre Salles appeared on the Chicago Sun-Times website on September 1, 2009.)
CHICAGO — Opponents of increasing suburban rail traffic are concerned that Canadian National Railway may be opening the door to running more trains along the former EJ&E rail line than the railroad initially projected.
Earlier this month, CN petitioned the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to allow 17 trackage agreements among its subsidiary companies. If the federal board approves, trains on the Illinois Central, Wisconsin Central and Grand Trunk Western railroads, all owned by CN, would be able to use the EJ&E tracks.
But CN spokesman Patrick Waldron emphasized that the company does not plan to use the rights to reroute trains onto the former EJ&E line, beyond what it had already proposed.
CN purchased the EJ&E tracks in January for $300 million, with the goal of sending trains off its clogged Chicago-area tracks and onto the line, which encircles the Chicago area from Gary to Joliet to Waukegan – and runs through Chicago Heights, Park Forest, Matteson, Frankfort and New Lenox.
As of Friday, CN has rerouted only four trains onto the old EJ&E tracks, Waldron said, and the major operational shifts have not yet happened.
He said the trackage agreements would merely allow crews from one section of the CN rail network to work on tracks in another section. As it is now, he said, crews from Grand Trunk cannot work on Illinois Central tracks and vice versa.
But Tom Weisner, chairman of The Regional Answer to Canadian National coalition, or TRAC, isn’t buying that explanation. He said the agreements, if approved, would allow CN to run more trains on the EJ&E tracks than it had planned.
“They are once again talking out of both sides of their mouths, and once again up to no good,” Weisner said of the railroad.
The Surface Transportation Board has asked for further clarification of CN’s request, and Waldron said that will be provided soon.
TRAC has again urged the board to reconsider its approval of the EJ&E deal, and Weisner hopes the board’s new chairman, Daniel Elliott, will “take a cold, hard look at things and not just view them through rose-colored glasses.”