(The following story by Guy Tridgell appeared on the South Town Star website on January 6.)
TINLEY PARK, Ill. — New Lenox does not want to see it happen. Neither do Frankfort and Matteson.
But the proposed sale of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad could bring less congestion on the Dan Ryan Expressway, more weekend Metra service in Orland Park and fewer stalled trains tying up roads in places such as Blue Island, Robbins and Riverdale.
While towns along the EJ&E are loudly objecting to an ownership change that could substantially increase the number of trains “The J” serves, the regional impact could be huge.
“If done right, there can be significant benefits to the entire Chicago network,” said Joe Szabo, the state director of the United Transportation Union and former mayor of Riverdale. “You are talking about realigning the rail hub of the nation. Chicago is a big chokepoint.”
Canadian National Railway – the Montreal rail giant with operations stretching from Vancouver to New Orleans – wants to purchase the EJ&E from U.S. Steel for $300 million. The new set of tracks in the CN arsenal would be used to siphon some of the passenger and freight traffic clogging Chicago and the suburban inner ring.
Hearings by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Surface Transportation Board into the proposed sale start next week. Before the deal can be consummated, the review process will take at least a year.
Plans for the EJ&E are big.
After investing $100 million in the line over the next three years, CN wants to increase the average number of trains flowing between Indiana and Joliet each day from eight to 31, according to paperwork filed with the Surface Transportation Board. Just between Matteson and Joliet, the average amount of tons shipped per day would jump from 35,375 to 226,994.
There also would be a surge in the number of cars carrying hazardous materials, with more than 400 each year rolling on the EJ&E, an increase of more than 350 percent.
Already local officials are predicting traffic jams from trains blocking roads, police unable to reach the other side of town because of crawling locomotives, and patients dying in ambulances after the drivers could not reach hospitals in time.
Between Illinois 394 in Sauk Village and Orchard Drive in Park Forest – a distance of about six miles – no tunnel or bridge is in place to get traffic over or under the EJ&E when trains are running.
“That is unacceptable,” said Ed Paesel, executive director of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association.
Will County Board member Cory Singer (R-Frankfort) called the EJ&E plans “another example of Cook County’s negative influence into the suburban area.”
“This is of absolutely zero value to the residents of Will County,” Singer said. “There is a benefit to the people of Cook County. There will be benefits to the companies shipping goods.”
But to communities closer to Chicago choking on trains already, the new-and-improved EJ&E cannot come soon enough.
Regional planners and railroad officials long have eyed the EJ&E, with its 198 miles of track in a semicircular beltway around Chicago, as a sleeping giant.
As many as 500 freight trains and 700 passenger trains a day struggle to get in and out of Chicago, the only spot in the country where the six busiest railroads meet. The result is slow trains and blocked streets in older rail towns such as Blue Island, Riverdale and Robbins.
And rail congestion long has been cited by Metra as the chief reason why no weekend service is offered on the Southwest Service Line serving Manhattan, New Lenox, Orland Park, Palos Park, Palos Heights, Worth, Oak Lawn and Chicago Ridge.
Jim LaBelle, vice president for Metropolis 2020, a Chicago organization promoting smart growth, said diverting some of that traffic to the EJ&E even could help local expressways.
Many train shipments into Chicago cannot link to other yards before heading to their final destination because there is no shared track between the major railroads. Giving one of those railroads control of the EJ&E would change that, LaBelle said.
“They basically are unloading a train in one yard and loading it on a truck to take to a train in another yard. They are driving on local roads to do it,” LaBelle said. “With the connections with the EJ&E, you might be able to reduce that. It might not be a bad trade.”