(The following story by Guy Tridgell appeared on the Southtown Star website on November 19.)
CHICAGO — For the past year, the proposed sale of the EJ&E Railroad has divided the Chicago area.
Tuesday, the federal panel with final say on the deal indicated it also is wrestling with the issue.
At a hearing in Washington, D.C., the Surface Transportation Board’s three members aired their reservations with Canadian National Railway Co. plans to buy the “J” and start rerouting trains into the suburbs.
Board member W. Douglas Buttrey expressed the deepest concerns, noting that only Joliet has reached an agreement with CN to make improvements that would minimize the sale’s impacts. Later in the afternoon, Crest Hill announced a similar agreement.
“There is still a huge chasm,” Buttrey said. “It concerns me greatly that we would presume to substitute our judgment for the state and local interests.”
The board members repeatedly referenced recent trips to the Chicago area to gauge the ramifications of putting more trains on the EJ&E. They spoke of seeing the protest signs in towns along the tracks.
Buttrey said he could “putt a golf ball” between the EJ&E and the “swing sets and teeter-totters” at local parks. He also wondered how Metra could ever develop its STAR Line on the EJ&E with CN operating freight trains on the single set of tracks.
“That sounds like an interesting situation,” Buttrey said. “I have trouble understanding how that is going to happen.”
The hearing was one of the final steps before the board renders its decision.
Frankfort Mayor Jim Holland, who watched the proceeding via a Webcast, expects a ruling to be handed down early next month.
“I am encouraged,” Holland said.
Established more than 100 years ago, the EJ&E cuts an arc across the Chicago area, touching suburbs such as New Lenox, Frankfort, Matteson, Richton Park and Chicago Heights.
Last year, CN announced plans to buy the line for $300 million so it can avoid sending trains into Chicago’s clogged rail network. Testimony at the hearing showed that trains often require 24 hours to travel from the outskirts of the Chicago area to their destinations in the city, while the EJ&E usually carries fewer than 10 trains a day in the suburbs.
CN wants to put as many as 40 trains a day on some portions of the EJ&E, which has sparked an outcry from towns that fear traffic jams from blocked crossings, delayed police and fire responses and decreased property values. Suburbs and city neighborhoods along CN’s existing five lines favor the proposal because of its potential to decrease train traffic in their communities.
The Surface Transportation Board’s staff members said Tuesday that a draft report this summer on the sale’s effects generated almost 10,000 responses, with nearly two-thirds in opposition to the plans. Frankfort generated the second-most comments, behind only northwest suburban Barrington
The board’s staff also disclosed that just one south suburban crossing over the EJ&E – U.S. 30 in Lynwood – was deemed worthy of a new underpass or overpass to separate vehicular traffic from the tracks. CN would be responsible for 15 percent of construction costs.
In Frankfort alone, the village was asking for a rebuilt underpass on LaGrange Road, along with new overpasses at Harlem Avenue and Wolf Road.
“That was disappointing,” Holland said. “Why should communities like mine have to pay for 85 percent of the costs when the need is arising because of the railroad.”
Board chairman Charles Nottingham said he does not expect the controversy go away once a ruling is made. He added that the current EJ&E owners, U.S. Steel, could back away from the deal and elect to increase the number of its trains even without board approval.
“Lord knows this case will be played out in the courts, no matter what we do,” Nottingham said.