New Lenox Rail Sense

January 31, 2008 / By Cindy Wojdyla Cain / Joliet Herald News

A regional planning agency is urging federal officials to use a 10-year window to study the possible side effects of the sale of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad to Canadian National.

Currently, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board plans to use a three- to five-year window during its environmental impact study, said Randy Blankenhorn, executive director of Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP).

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January 31, 2008 / By JOSH SINGER, Pioneer Press Staff Writer

Local residents are looking for ways to stop the rumbling of more trains before they start.

Hundreds of Hoffman Estates residents packed a village meeting Monday night to talk about potential problems of the sale of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad to Canadian National, with complaints ranging from noise to property values to homeland security. Freight traffic would decrease in Chicago with the transaction, but go up in villages such as Hoffman Estates and Barrington.

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January 30, 2008 / By PATRICK BROMLEY / Barrington Courier-Review

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Community Unit School District 220 School Board, it a resolution to the Surface Transportation Board opposing Canadian National’s $300-million purchase of the EJ&E railway.

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January 25, 2008 / By ANDRE SALLES / Aurora Beacon News

AURORA - Roughly 100 Aurorans braved the cold Thursday night to voice their concerns about a potential railroad sale that could see four times as many freight trains per day come through their neighborhoods.

The Canadian National Railway Corporation is in talks to purchase the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company and divert a large number of trains from Chicago to the western suburbs.

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January 21, 2008 / By Susan DeMar Lafferty / Sun-Times News Group

Those who have lived in the area decades ago may remember when the EJ&E Railroad ran several trains over its two sets of tracks through the New Lenox area. When rail traffic slowed, the tracks were partially torn up, leaving one set of rails and maybe a half dozen trains a day.

The Canadian National now wants to purchase the EJ&E lines to revive the freight line, divert its Chicago traffic out to surrounding suburbs and quadruple the number of trains. While there are many who support that, New Lenox is one of many communities opposing it.

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January 17, 2008 / By MATT KIEFER / Barrington Courier-Review

An estimated 1,600 people flocked to Makray Memorial Golf Club in Barrington to air their concerns about a proposed railroad deal that would roll more freight trains through outlying suburbs along the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway.

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January 17, 2008 / By Erik Potter / Gary Post Tribune

Northwest Indiana residents and officials on Thursday gave their opinions to federal regulators studying the environmental impacts of the proposed sale of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway to Canadian National.

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January 16, 2008 / By KAREN HANSON / Lincolnway Sun

Federal authorities will almost certainly approve the sale of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad to Canadian National Railway, but citizens can make a difference in lessening the impact to local communities, a consultant hired by the village of Frankfort said.

“The legal framework gives railroads very good cards, but not all the cards,” said Eric Hirschhorn, a partner in the law firm of Winston and Strawn, headquartered in Chicago. About 100 people crowded into Heritage Hall in downtown Frankfort to hear Hirschhorn’s presentation to a committee of the whole meeting on Jan. 7.

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January 16, 2008 / BY GUY TRIDGELL / Southtown Star

For Sharon Root, the biggest headache that comes with living near the EJ&E Railroad tracks is the occasional case of cracked plaster.

“We enjoy sitting on our back porch with a glass of wine and listening to the Cubs game,” the Frankfort woman said. “When the trains go by, we stop the conversation and crank up the radio a little louder.”

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Switching tracks to skirt Chicago irks some suburbs

January 10, 2008 / By Richard Wronski, Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Freelance reporter Robert Channick contributed to this report

The proposed sale of a short-line railroad whose tracks arc around the Chicago area, from Waukegan to Gary, threatens to pit suburb against suburb in a battle over noisy and congestive freight train traffic.

On one side of the tracks, so to speak, are those who bitterly oppose the purchase, fearing it will bring more trains, noise and blocked grade crossings to their communities. On the other are those who see welcome relief from the never-ending line of freight cars that already tie up vehicle traffic in their towns.

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