New Lenox Rail Sense

August 12, 2008 / By Richard Wronski / Chicago Tribune reporterDrivers stuck at crossings could see 2 miles of rail cars

Call them freight trains on steroids, monster trains double-stacked with containers, long enough to block every rail crossing at the same time in some Chicago-area communities.

Many suburban officials fear the number of such lengthy trains will increase if a plan to divert transcontinental freight traffic through their communities is approved.

In Barrington, one of these 1.5-mile or longer trains could shut down all four crossings simultaneously, said Village President Karen Darch, who worries that even longer behemoths are in the offing.

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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.

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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.

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Railway says traffic shift would help area

February 29, 2008 / By Richard Wronski / Chicago Tribune

The Canadian National Railway’s plan to divert freight traffic around Chicago’s congested rail corridor will have a negative impact on many communities and could jeopardize Amtrak and expanded Metra service, Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Melissa Bean warned.

The Illinois Democrats blasted the railroad in a letter Thursday for failing to show “a willingness to meet the needs of the communities” where dozens of freight trains a day will be shifted in order to bypass clogged rail lines in the city.

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February 22, 2008 / By REGAN FOSTER / Northwest Herald

SCHAUMBURG - A pending $300 million rail purchase that could increase the number of freight trains running along lightly used suburban lines has both winners and losers, Sen. Richard Durbin said Thursday.

Unfortunately, the senior senator from Illinois added, many of those who stand to lose the most live in the north and northwest suburbs.

Durbin and Rep. Melissa Bean met with suburban leaders Thursday to hear their thoughts on, among other topics, Canadian National’s pending purchase of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad.

“This is a complicated proposal,” Durbin said. “We’ve got to work this thing out, not just jump on it.”

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February 1, 2008 / By STEVE LORD / Beacon News

GENEVA - 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 in to Chicago, where freight traffic already is congested, and put it on the EJ&E tracks.

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