(The following story by Dan Campana appeared on The Beacon News website on November 10.)
CHICAGO — The federal board charged with deciding on Canadian National Railway’s merger proposal wants an update on a study of the deal.
On Nov. 18, the Surface Transportation Board is scheduled to hear from environmental analysis officials who are currently working on a final report about the impact of Canadian National’s plan to buy 198 miles of Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway tracks.
Those tracks swing around Chicago from northwest Indiana to Chicago’s northern suburbs, cutting through Joliet, Naperville, Aurora and Elgin.
No formal decisions or announcements are expected out of the meeting, called by board officials for a briefing on and discussion of the final environmental study.
The environmental study will be used as a basis for the STB’s ultimate decision, which is expected early next year. Canadian National has challenged that time frame because its agreement, reached in 2007 with EJ&E parent company U.S. Steel, is set to lapse on Dec. 31 unless it receives federal approval.
After the STB declined to accelerate the decision-making process, CN went to federal court in September in an effort to force the STB into ruling on the deal by year’s end. That petition remains under consideration.
CN has repeatedly said the Chicagoland area would see an overall improvement in rail safety and freight train efficiency by shifting the traffic from Chicago to the EJ&E tracks. Company officials have argued the impact on communities such as Aurora – which could have four times as many trains per day across its three East Side crossings – would be offset by fewer trains going through other towns on the line.
Opponents, led by the suburban coalition called The Regional Answer to Canadian National, have said CN’s plans lack deep enough projections on the actual impact to EJ&E towns and don’t cover enough of the cost to mitigate increased train traffic.
A draft environmental study, issued in July and the subject of a September public hearing in Aurora, was met with mixed reviews by both sides.