(The following story by Blackwell Thomas appeared on The Southern website on March 27.)
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The proposed purchase of an 11-mile stretch of railroad in Chicago could have a big impact in Southern Illinois, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin warned Thursday.
The deal would see Canadian National purchase a portion of line held by Elgin Joliet & Eastern Railway that leads from the south side of Chicago toward downtown and Union Station.
Standing outside the train station and flanked by local and state officials opposed to the deal, Durbin said at least one of the new Amtrak lines added about two years ago would be threatened if the purchase is approved. Amtrak and city officials have credited those two lines, the Illini and Saluki, with leading to a ridership spike in the region and helping to bring tourism to Southern Illinois.
“These acquisitions will change the trackage available out of Chicago,” he said. “And we will see the routing of freight traffic through a number of areas that have never seen it before.”
The result of the deal, Durbin said, would be jeopardized service to Southern Illinois and increased train congestion along already saturated lines.
The transaction is currently before the Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency charged with resolving railroad rate and service disputes.
Durbin said the STB has traditionally been a rubber stamp for deals like the proposed CN-EJE sale but added that he hoped the agency would “take its time” in evaluating the proposal.
Officials with CN have said the deal will not diminish the breadth or the quality of service Amtrak offers.
“The motivation (for the acquisition) is one of railroad efficiency,” said CN Spokesman Jim Kvedaras. “It (the current traffic situation) is kind of stop-start, stop-start. We can lose 24 hours in that half-hour region.”
Amtrak officials said they are concerned that, once the sale goes through, they will be the only agency using the stretch of rail leading into Union Station and thus will be stuck with a larger bill.
“That is not accurate,” Kvedaras said. “They (rail usage rates paid by Amtrak) would be capped indefinitely moving forward. They (Amtrak) will pay what they are paying today. There will be an annual escalator, to allow for inflation.”
In a release from the company, CN officials say failure to sell and then fully utilize the EJE line would cost the country about $2 billion and 17,000 jobs over the next 20 years.
Durbin said he was involved in discussions with CN, but they had yet to yield any concrete successes.