(The following story by Guy Tridgell appeared on the Southtown Star website on January 11.)
CHICAGO — Two sets of railroad tracks meet at East End Avenue and 23rd Street in Chicago Heights in an area known for aging homes and vacant brick warehouses.
It is an area carrying the weight of big plans.
Locals envision the spot eventually becoming home to two Metra lines and a bustling commuter station with all of the economic benefits and cachet that comes with it.
But the intersection of tracks claims some of the busiest freight traffic around. And it’s about to get even busier, courtesy of the Canadian National Railway’s pending takeover of the EJ&E Railroad.
Finding room for everyone is not going to be easy.
The fallout of the controversial EJ&E sale is challenging, once again, the delicate balancing act between freight and commuter traffic on suburban Chicago’s rails.
Nowhere is the challenge going to be greater than Chicago Heights.
Running north and south through the city are CSX tracks that carry 20 trains a day. Metra wants to use the tracks in the next few years for the SouthEast Service Line, a new route that would connect Crete with Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station, passing through Chicago Heights, Thornton, South Holland and Dolton. The new line is expected to cost about $500 million.
To reach their destinations, SouthEast Service Line trains will have to pass the EJ&E, a 198-mile line running in an arc from Waukegan to Gary. Last month, federal regulators approved the sale of the EJ&E to the CN, a Montreal company that plans to use the EJ&E to relieve congestion on its other Chicago tracks. The sale is under appeal by towns along the EJ&E.
In Chicago Heights, the merger could mean a jump from nine trains a day on the EJ&E to 32.
Metra has long eyed the EJ&E for its ambitious STAR Line. Metra’s first suburb-to-suburb route initially woul run between Joliet and O’Hare International Airport, with plans to expand east into Indiana in the coming decades.
Both the STAR and SouthEast Service lines are in the early planning stages. Huge price tags await with no funding sources in sight.
But the EJ&E sale will pose additional obstacles.
In approving the deal Dec. 24, the Surface Transportation Board denied Metra’s request to require CN to negotiate trackage rights to permit new commuter service before the $300 million sale is finalized.
“We wanted them to be a little firmer in getting CN to talk to us and work out an agreement,” Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said. “It is going to be a complex negotiation, obviously.”
Randy Blankenhorn, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, worried the extra trains on the EJ&E might require revamping complicated railroad interlockings and adding a second set of tracks on the line to accommodate Metra’s plans. The improvements threaten to drive up the costs even higher.
“That concerns us,” Blankenhorn said.
The six major freight railroads in the Chicago area reduce operations three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon so Metra can accommodate commuters.
CN spokesman Jim Kvedaras said he expects similar operating agreements to continue when more trains hit the EJ&E. He said CN’s plans to add a second set of tracks to add capacity to the EJ&E between Joliet and Frankfort might even help with the STAR Line.
Kvedaras pointed out Metra runs the Heritage Corridor Line on CN tracks in the south suburbs already.
He downplayed the possibility of any future conflicts with Metra.
“We will work with Metra,” Kvedaras said. “We do that on a daily basis.”
Chicago Heights continues crafting lofty ideas for the neighborhoods surrounding the EJ&E and CSX tracks.
The city will host a hearing March 2 to explore starting a special taxing district around its proposed train station to encourage redevelopment.
City attorney TJ Somer said Chicago Heights is banking on the railroads figuring out their differences, leading to the start of the SouthEast Service Line.
“We would be foolish if we didn’t proceed with the assumption that it is going to happen.” he said. “It could be the catalyst we have been looking for in that area for a long time.”
A more pressing matter, Somer said, is the state’s inability to pass a capital program since Illinois FIRST expired in 2004. He said a new program is needed to unlock federal dollars to bring commuter trains into Chicago Heights.
“I’m more concerned about that,” Somer said.