New Lenox Rail Sense

October 2, 2008 / By Richard Wronski / Chicago Tribune reporter

Canadian railway raises Chicago-area bid, but critics remain

Canadian National Railway pledged at least $60 million Wednesday to make improvements in its bid to reroute freight traffic through unsympathetic suburbs, but the money won’t begin to cover the cost of 15 overpasses and underpasses that critics say might be needed.

In its bid to buy the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, CN previously had offered $40 million to help communities along the line cope with traffic delays, noise and other problems caused by increased trains.

Read the complete article

September 7, 2008 / By ERIK POTTER / Gary Post-Tribune

Chicago’s CREATE program, a more than $1.5 billion series of improvement project designed to relieve rail congestion, estimates that the Chicago region will lose out on 17,000 jobs and $2 billion in annual economic production in 20 years if the congestion problem is not addressed.

The CN purchase of the EJ&E will not make a large dent in solving the overall congestion problem, but it will make some progress.

Read the complete article

July 28, 2008 / By David Schaper / National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” [link contains audio]

A “calamity,” a “rail meltdown” and “chaos in the supply chain” - those are all ways transportation experts and executives describe the state of railroad congestion in Chicago. “And it’s only going to get worse,” adds another.

Read the complete article / listen to the radio version

April 24, 2008 / Chicago Tribune

The Barrington area is the most vocal opponent to this plan because the number of freight trains passing through each day would grow to 20 from five. Complaints from towns along the EJ&E route that don’t want more train traffic aren’t reason enough to block this plan. Its benefits for the Chicago area are overwhelming. But the Barrington area, and possibly others along the route, will need crossings that separate road traffic from rail. CN has said it will pay $40 million to help build those crossings. That may not be enough. But local demands that CN foot the entire bill for all improvements are unreasonable and would be unprecedented.

Read the complete article

April 21, 2008 / By Daniel D. Pritchett, Village President, Franklin Park (CREATE Task Force Co-Chair)

Franklin Park has been a major railroad hub for over 125 years. The proposed purchase of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway by the Canadian National Railway Co. will benefit Franklin Park and the entire Chicago region.

Read the complete article

March 10, 2008 / Dennis Byrne / Chicago Tribune

If dozens of freight trains were blasting through your neighborhood every day, you’d probably complain too.

And so, folks in a ring of outer suburbs, from Waukegan, down through Barrington, Elgin and Joliet, and over to Gary, are beefing about a proposal to turn an underused railroad bypass around Chicago into something of a freight superhighway. But in the usual game of winners and losers, Chicago and inner suburbs are cheering because they see the plan as deliverance from the same trains that now rumble through their neighborhoods.

The project also has broader implications for the region’s economic health and its pre-eminence as the nation’s transportation hub. This could turn into a contentious and important regional fight.

Read the full article