(The following story by Steve Lord appeared on the Daily Herald website on February 1.)
GENEVA, Ill. — None of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway track right-of-way runs through Kane County, but the prospect of train traffic doubling on its tracks concerns the Kane County Board.
The Canadian National Railway Company has filed an application to purchase the EJ&E. If it does, Canadian National intends to pull some of its freight traffic off lines closer to Chicago, where freight traffic already is congested, and put it on the EJ&E tracks.
The railroad has said the number of trains on the track could go from 19 a day to 40 a day.
That additional traffic has officials throughout the region concerned. The EJ&E line runs from Indiana south of Chicago out to Joliet, then up through Aurora, Naperville and Elgin, near Kane County’s eastern border.
Transportation Committee Chairman Jan Carlson of Elburn pointed out that there is a crossing on Stearns Road in DuPage County, right where officials are connecting the Stearns Road corridor that will include the regional bridge crossing over the Fox River north of St. Charles.
“We’re going to be funneling all this traffic into this corridor, and there’s a grade crossing that could become a real bottleneck,” he said. Carlson said local government does not have the money to build bridges or underpasses for all the grade crossings of the EJ&E. He said the situation might require some kind of “federal intervention.”
“How are we going to move traffic without taking care of those grade crossings?” Carlson said.
Canadian National has applied to the federal Surface Transportation Board, which requires an environmental impact study of the sale. The board is collecting information for that study.
Area officials had until today to send their comments to the Surface Transportation Board. Kane County Transportation Division officials said they would send some of the comments from the Transportation Committee. The Chicago Metropolitan Area Planning board, or CMAP, has sent comments for the region, too.
One thing they pointed out, from the region’s standpoint, was the fact that the planned Star Line, a light rail commuter train proposed to move from Joliet through the western suburbs, eventually linking with O’Hare International Airport, is planned for the EJ&E tracks.
“How will this affect that?” asked Kane Board member Don Wolfe of Elgin.