(The following story appeared on the Des Plaines Journal website on February 3.)
DES PLAINES, Ill. — Rail traffic in the Journal’s Northwest suburban coverage area could start seeing reductions as soon as Wednesday, Mar. 4, after sale of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway (EJ&E) to Canadian National (CN) was finalized.
How quickly rail traffic will be reduced is still unclear, however.
The sale means that rail traffic on the “inner corridor” line that runs from Lake County through Buffalo Grove, Wheeling, Prospect Hts., Mt. Prospect, Des Plaines and Rosemont, into Chicago, will be reduced from 19 trains per day to two over the next three years, diverted to tracks along “the outer corridor” that run through far western and northwestern suburbs including Plainfield, Elgin and Barrington.
How many trains would be diverted and how soon is still something that CN officials are not giving specifics about.
“CN will now begin the careful, step-by-step integration of the EJ&E lines into CN’s system, shifting trains from CN’s existing lines onto the EJ&E over a three-year period as CN completes $100 million in track and infrastructure improvements to the EJ&E line,” said CN Vice President for Government Affairs for Karen Phillips. “However, no trains will be shifted from CN lines onto the EJ&E until March 4 or thereafter.”
The federal Surface Transportation Board approved the sale on Christmas Eve last year with a 30-day appeal period that ended Jan. 23.
Last month, CN Senior Manager for Public and Government Affairs Jim Kvedaras said upgrades of the tracks were needed for many CN trains to be compatible with the EJ&E tracks. Trains will be diverted as those upgrades were made, said Kvedaras.
In a press release issued Sunday, CN said a community liaison would be appointed to work with local officials through the transition.
A CN source said Kvedaras had been named as that liaison. The Journal could not immediately reach Kvedaras for this article.