(The Associated Press circulated the following article on April 23.)
MARQUETTE, Iowa — A daylong train ride from Marquette to Bellevue billed as a “rolling meeting” appears to have calmed some residents’ apprehension about a proposed increase in rail traffic through Clayton, Dubuque and Jackson counties.
Kevin Schieffer, president of Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad, made presentations to people from several affected communities.
Residents who saw the presentation said it calmed many of their concerns.
“The meeting alleviated a lot of my apprehension,” said Russ Loven, president of Naturally Guttenberg, an organization that promotes economic development in the Clayton County town.
Schieffer said residents need not worry about train services adversely affecting their daily life.
“People worry about a wall of trains keeping them from getting to the grocery store,” he said. “I wish we had those problems, but there is really nothing to worry about.”
Schieffer, 48, is the architect of a planned $2 billion expansion of the IC&E and its sister company, the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad. The proposed expansion would help facilitate the shipment of low-sulfur Wyoming coal to power plants in the Midwest and East.
Schieffer said he does not know how many additional trains will run on IC&E tracks in Eastern Iowa or on DM&E tracks across South Dakota and Minnesota.
Currently, an average of five to six trains per day run on the IC&E tracks through Marquette. An additional two trains per day would be likely if the coal train project becomes operational, he said.
On the DM&E tracks, projections range from an additional eight to 34 trains per day, he said.
“We don’t know,” he said. “The market will determine that.”
Schieffer said the companies trains go through 56 communities and only one, Rochester, Minn., has opposed the coal train project.
Members of that community have formed the Rochester Coalition, which opposes Schieffer’s plan and filed an appeal in federal court.
The coalition issued a press release Friday, which said increased rail traffic would threaten the safety of their community, and called on Iowans to “ask the same tough questions weve been asking for almost a decade that have gone unanswered.”
Schieffer dismissed the coalition’s complaints, saying it wanted all DM&E trains routed south into Iowa and onto IC&E tracks before they get to Rochester.
“That’s a screwball proposal, and it’s not going to happen,” Schieffer said. “In interstate commerce, you go for the most efficient route, and you don’t dump perceived problems on your neighbors.”