(The following story by Andre Salles appeared on the Pioneer Press website on August 30, 2009.)
CHICAGO — Opponents of increasing suburban rail traffic are concerned that Canadian National Railway Company may be opening the doors to more trains along the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern rail line than they initially promised.
Earlier this month, the company petitioned the federal Surface Transportation Board to allow 17 trackage agreements between its subsidiary companies.
This means, if these are approved, trains on the Illinois Central, Wisconsin Central and Grand Trunk Western railroads, all owned by CN, will be able to use EJ&E tracks.
But CN spokesman Patrick Waldron emphasized that the company does not plan to use these rights to reroute trains onto the EJ&E, beyond what they had already proposed.
CN purchased the EJ&E tracks in January for $300 million, with the goal of sending trains off of their clogged Chicago tracks and onto the suburban rail system.
As of Friday, the company had only rerouted four trains onto those tracks, Waldron said, and the major operational shifts had not yet happened. But he said the trackage agreements were merely to allow crews from one section of the CN rail network to work on tracks in another section. As it is now, he said, crews from Grand Trunk cannot work on Illinois Central tracks, and vice versa.
But Tom Weisner, chair of coalition The Regional Answer to Canadian National, doesn’t believe him. He says the requests, if approved, will allow CN’s other rail companies to use the EJ&E tracks whenever they like and accused CN of lying.
“They are once again talking out of both sides of their mouths, and once again up to no good,” Weisner said.
The Surface Transportation Board has asked for further clarification of CN’s request, and Waldron said that will be provided soon. No decision has been made on whether to grant the trackage rights.
TRAC has once again urged the Transportation Board to reconsider its approval of the EJ&E deal, and Weisner is hoping that the newly confirmed chairman of that board, Daniel Elliott, will “take a cold, hard look at things not just view them through rose-colored glasses.”