BNSF, Illinois set terms for $45-million project
Written by jrood
BNSF and the State of Illinois have reached a preliminary agreement on how to spend $45 million in state funds to upgrade the rail network at Galesburg, Ill., to help passenger and freight trains operate efficiently on the shared track system, The Journal of Commerce reports.
George Weber, acting deputy
director for public and intermodal transportation within the Illinois
Department of Transportation, said the agreement should be finalized within 30
days, setting the stage for construction to get under way next spring.
Already, BNSF tracks carry
two daily passenger trains through Galesburg from Chicago to the Mississippi
River town of Quincy. They also carry two more long-distance Amtrak trains from
Chicago bound for Los Angeles and Denver.
But the Chicago-Quincy
traffic is on a single-track main line, and BNSF has a major rail yard in
Galesburg for freight operations that passenger trains move through as well. In
return for running passenger service on the freight carrier’s system, Illinois
committed to paying for some infrastructure improvements that will make it
easier to keep both types of train service running on time without getting in
each other’s way.
Weber said the money will
pay for three track additions at Galesburg, including two "staging tracks" that
are each roughly a mile long, where BNSF could line up freight cars loaded with
coal or other cargo while it keeps the mainline open for both passenger and freight
trains to pass through.
The Chicago-Quincy
passenger service averages about 60 mph, Weber said, and has a top speed of 79
mph. That makes it the fastest passenger rail corridor in the state until
Illinois can begin a 110-mph Amtrak service on Union Pacific tracks between
Chicago and St. Louis. That project is already under construction.
Weber said that in 2006
Illinois doubled its passenger train frequency from one to two a day between
Chicago and Quincy in return for pledging to invest in a future upgrade project
with BNSF. This new agreement fulfills that pledge, he said, by paying for work
that makes the BNSF network at Galesburg more fluid and able to accommodate
future growth without slowing passenger or freight trains.
