(The following report by Erik Potter appeared on the Gary, Ind., Post-Tribune website on November 2.)
GARY, Ind. — The proposed sale of the EJ&E railroad to Canadian National could offer a mixed bag to Northwest Indiana.
The consolidation will mean millions of dollars of investment in the region, as CN looks to eventually triple rail traffic through Gary’s Kirk Yard and upgrade existing track, according to documents CN filed with the federal Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday.
But the added traffic would come at a cost, including a dramatic increase in hazardous material transportation through the area, increased congestion and air pollution, and job losses.
Consolidation plans call for abolishing 50 jobs in Gary and Whiting, along with 64 other jobs across the EJ&E system.
Thirty-five of the Gary positions to be eliminated are clerks and workers who maintain tracks and signals. Those reductions are expected to be achieved through attrition.
The $300 million purchase of EJ&E will give CN a convenient detour around Chicago, which is a huge rail bottleneck, the documents state.
EJ&E’s 200 miles of track avoid Chicago’s congested core and loops around the city from Waukegan to the north, around through Joliet, up to Gary, and back west to Chicago’s south side.
CN, which operates the largest rail network in Canada, estimates that adding the EJ&E line will enable the combined tracks to earn an additional $14.9 million and handle nearly 10,000 more rail cars per year.
Concerns expressed
Stan Dobis, president of the Griffith Town Council, pointed to concerns about the number, speed and length of trains coming through Griffith, as well as the response time to maintenance requests on the tracks as issues he will be working with the office of U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, to get addressed.
“We’re concerned with the length of those trains. … If they had an incident, they could shut us down and (cause) serious problems here,” Dobis said.
CN’s application to the Surface Transportation Board shows that the EJ&E line through Griffith will see a 10-fold increase in the number of rail cars carrying hazardous material.
“They’re going through a good portion of our residential area, so that would be a great concern for us,” Dobis said. “I don’t see any benefit (to the increased traffic), none whatsoever for us. We’ve got everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
The environmental impact of diverting rail traffic from congested Chicago lines to suburban EJ&E lines is not yet clear.
In its application to the Surface Transportation Board, CN states that, “there is no way to achieve these benefits (of decreased congestion) in the dense urban core of Chicago without introducing new traffic in less populated areas. … We are committed to working with the communities affected by the re-routed traffic to address their specific concerns.”
CN will be releasing an environmental study on the effects of shifting Chicago traffic to the EJ&E in the coming months.