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Mongeau: EJ&E acquisition keeps CN fluid in Midwest
I’m sure all of the “TRAIN LOVERS” in Barrington will agree with this.
Well Mr. Elliott, tough crapola on them and their Barrington-based spokesperson Karen Darch. The railroad was there long before they arrived to buy their spacious mcmansions and fill the roads up to capacity with their suburb to suburb commutes and sprawl. What probably happened was the hotshot real estate agencies told 'em the rail traffic would never grow. Or may they told 'em the line would likely be abandoned and they could convert it to a bikeway.
As for the road/rail grade separations those communities want, CN made good on their promises and paid for the ones originally agreed to. If the communities want more they can pay for more.
What’s utterly lost on these people is that CN and the CREATE planners had found CN a routing around downtown Chicago that would have allowed for abandonment of the St. Charles Air Line. CN would never had gotten anywhere near the EJ&E. Then Congress, in the words of noted rail industry analyst Tony Hatch, "horse-traded away the federal match and left the program flat on its back. Then CN walked away and found Plan B.
Hey Mark, I agree 100%. I used to work for CNW. Had to deal Barrington people all the time. They loved it when we blocked their streets when delivering cars to the EJ&E. At least we knew that their car horns worked.
As a matter of accuracy, I forgot to close the quotation marks on Tony Hatch’s statement. Should have read “horse-traded away”…
And Gary, I was a Metra train dispatcher (retired at the end of December 2007). The headquarters of the CREATE staff of superintendent-grade officers from all the CHI region railroads were at our Consolidated Control Facility (CCF). I got to hear things and see various documents/maps etc. CN north of CHI and south of CHI were to be connected using the “Grand Crossing Connection” a new alignment adjacent to the NS Chicago Line through Englewood, a 49th Street Line (old GTW row), and then north alongside the NS and CSX alignments. Crossovers at the NS end of the GC Connection would have allowed Amtrak to piggyback on this and afford its trains to/from southern IL head-on movement to CUS instead of the awkward, time-consuming back up moves via the St. Charles Air Line and Union Ave Interlocking on BNSF.
I saw the track diagrams of the proposed track and interlocking configurations. A great deal of work and planning by a group of hard-working dedicated railroaders went into that and it all died when the federal $$$ were “horse-traded away”. I don’t know if any of the CREATE staff and/ or CN, after the latter purchased the EJ&E, took that reality to Ms. Darch and her followers but I sure wish they had.
And of course a main reason people moved out to Barrington was the swift CNW commute downtown. Had relatives who started doing that back in the 1950s.
As long as some of the ej&e power is saved and preserved at some where like IRM I will be happy.