Despite suburbs’ attempts to derail plans, CN’s Chicago bypass on track

Written by jrood

Nearly one year after the Canadian National Railway purchased a suburban rail line as a freight bypass around Chicago, fears of a massive influx of two-mile-long trains rolling through dozens of neighborhoods haven't yet materialized, the Chicago Tribune reports.

 But residents and local officials have complained that train noise and vibrations from the CN's more powerful, multiple locomotives are wreaking havoc on home life.



"The engines make
ungodly noises and vibrations. … They would wake the dead," said Michele
Oehlerking, who lives across the street from the tracks in Hawthorn Woods.
"The house shakes and the lampshades jiggle. In summer, you can’t hear the
TV when the trains go by."



Still, worried suburbanites
haven’t seen many of the problems that were predicted for the former Elgin,
Joliet & Eastern Railway, a lightly used short line railroad running from
Waukegan to Joliet to Gary.

 Equipment breakdowns have occasionally closed
some crossings for excessively long stretches and delayed motorists, records
show, but no horror stories involving blocked ambulances or fire trucks have
been reported.



Overall, train volumes have
decreased on most segments of the EJ&E since CN started operating on the
line in March, according to monthly reports the railroad has filed with federal
regulators. 

In December, the stretch from Mundelein to Bartlett averaged more
than seven trains a day, only two more than ran on the EJ&E prior to CN’s
takeover. Most of the rest of the segments showed only one more train per day,
or fewer trains, according to CN’s report.



Eventually, CN plans to
run three or four times more trains than historically have rolled along the
EJ&E. First it needs to complete a three-year, $100-million upgrade of the
century-old line’s tracks and infrastructure.



Although freight traffic on
all major rail lines dropped sharply in 2009 because of the struggling economy,
analysts predict strong growth.



"While the traffic
may be less (than expected), all the symptoms we predicted are there,"
said Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner, co-chairman of a coalition of suburbs that
organized to oppose the CN’s plans. "It’s just a matter of time before
we’ll see the trains in greater volume."



As part of the EJ&E
upgrade, CN told regulators it plans to enlarge three sidings near South
Barrington, West Chicago and Aurora to accommodate 10,000-foot-long trains.



The anti-CN coalition known
as TRAC, or The Regional Answer to Canadian National, continues to battle with
the railroad, pressing its challenge to the transportation board’s ruling in a
Washington court. But 21 communities along the former EJ&E arc have made
peace with the Montreal-based railroad.

 The suburbs have negotiated voluntary
agreements with CN to help establish quiet zones, install cameras to monitor
rail crossings and take other safety measures. Some towns have negotiated
multimillion-dollar deals; others have settled for less.



Plainfield, which had once
been a CN foe and had donated $10,000 to TRAC, made a deal with CN and quit the
coalition in December .

In addition to new safety fencing and a warning system
to alert emergency workers about crossing gate status, CN gave Plainfield a
small parcel of land.



"We tried to get the
best bang for our buck, and this seemed to be about as good as it’s going to
get," Village President Mike Collins said. "That’s why we agreed to
it."



CN is working hard to
resolve concerns by reaching agreements with individual communities, spokesman
Patrick Waldron said.

 The accords are in keeping with the Dec. 24, 2008,
decision of the federal Surface Transportation Board allowing CN to buy the
EJ&E.

 The sale became official Jan. 31, 2009.

In addition, the railroad
says it has appointed a liaison to work with suburbs, updated warning signs at
grade crossings and given several safety presentations at schools near the
EJ&E tracks.



"CN takes very
seriously the agreements we made when we took over the EJ&E line," CN
Vice President Karen Borlaug Phillips recently told the transportation board.



The TRAC coalition, which
includes Barrington, Aurora and Naperville, continues to press its fight before
a federal appeals court in Washington and seeks to overturn the transportation
board’s decision.

 The coalition claimed an important victory recently when,
in response to TRAC’s request, the transportation board agreed to have an independent
consultant verify CN’s reports of grade crossing delays and accidents.



The number of
grade-crossing delays along the rail line has dropped sharply. CN reported 49
delays of 10 minutes or more occurring in February and March. Since then, the
number has ranged from 4 to 14 each month.

 The longest reported delay was in
October when a Main Street crossing in Matteson was blocked for 4/5 hours when
a train backed into rail cars in a freight yard.



Meanwhile, CN is pushing
its own challenge to the transportation board decision. The railroad objects to
the board’s order that it must pay most of the cost for building rail-highway
bridges in Aurora and Lynwood.

 The two overpasses could cost the railroad at
least $151 million, more than half the $300 million the CN paid for the
EJ&E.



Barrington President Karen
Darch, a TRAC co-chair, said the group also stressed its concerns over several
recent derailments involving CN trains.

 The most troubling incident, she
said, was the June 19 accident in Rockford when a CN train left the tracks and
several tankers filled with ethanol exploded into flames. A 41-year-old woman
and an unborn baby were killed, and several others were injured. Officials
evacuated about 600 homes in the area.

 Other accidents involving CN trains
include a Dec. 22 derailment involving three cars on a CN train in Burlington,
and a Jan. 16, 2009, derailment involving 17 train cars in Buffalo Grove.



Not all residents have been
discouraged by CN’s new operations on the EJ&E, however. Edward Benson, who
has lived in New Lenox for 10 years, isn’t troubled by delays from CN’s
freights.



"I see traffic back
up, but I haven’t seen the ‘you killed my uncle because we couldn’t get him to
the hospital’ kind of thing," Benson said. "I think the prediction of
doom has been overblown."


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