Eric T. Jakubowski, Chief Commerical Officer of Anacostia Rail Holdings will be a joint Sandhouse Gang and Chicago Chapter of the Transportation Research Forum today June 4th at DePaul University, College of Law Lewis Center, 25 E. Jackson, Room 241, Chicago.
He will discuss the CN purchase of the EJE.
I plan to attend.
Ed
Wish I could…
Time? Phone link?
I will summarize the presentation. Eric Jakubowski was the lead negotiator for CN on the EJE purchase. Mr. Jakubowski didnt really go into detail of the negotiations with US Steel, who owned EJE, but rather the negotiations involved primarily with the communities.
There were approximately 30 attendees, including several stone faced representatives of CN and the Villiage of Barrington President. Mr. Jakubowski was careful about disclosure (“stone faced CN representatives”) and he commented early this wasnt going to be about “the numbers”.
CN’s motivations for the purchase was based on:
Never being able to control their routings thru Chicago to their satisfaction.
CREATE was moving too slow…it will probably take another 2 decades to complete it.
CN has multiple routes and directions thru Chicago.
The availability of the Kirk Yard hump, which was really needed in their system (humps in Toronto, western Canada, and Memphis, Tn).
CN was hit with a firestorm of villiage protests and “heavily financed opposition” to the acquisition. He was curious as to the source of the funding as it was very well monetized and featured “Madison Avenue marketing firms”. Barrington was the center of opposition.
One thing which CN did that he felt critical was hiring it’s own Engineering firm rather than rely on the STB appointed firm. CN was able to get in front of the process and had their own database of municipality information including locations of schools, hospitals, firehouses, crossings, car traffic data, etc.
There is a lawsuit currently in place with Barrington (not sure if against CN or STB), so there was considerable guarded comments…(remember the “stone faced representatives of CN” and the Villiage President of Barrington).
Today the J:
That explains the construction I saw at the Joliet yard Sunday–they’ve torn down the large shop building that was there, and were grading and laying track in that area. I’d been thinking it would be a transloading facility, but intermodal is a good guess for what’s going on–now!
My question would be why they need an intermodal facility there, not all that far from the one at what used to be Markham Yard.
Karen Darch is a woman possessed by this issue. She did not want those freight trains running through her Barrington. I get the impression that she will fight this thing as long as she has breath in her body. A while back a CN train broke a knuckle in Barrington. She had the police investigating it.
Those same CN trains run though Antioch, IL. They go hard by two schools. The public high school and a Lutheran grade school. The two track line, which hosts Metra service on weekdays, splits the Antioch high school facility. The athletic fields are on the east side of the tracks while the other school buildings are west of the tracks. When the students go outside for PE or baseball/football practice they cross the tracks. There is a gated pedestrian crossing for them to use. I once saw a rather large PE class returning to the west side. The PE teacher was standing right by the gate making sure none of the students did anything stupid.
I’ve lived here since 2003 and I’ve never heard of a problem caused by the CN trains. But to Ms. Darch, her Barrington is special. So she fights.
The Joliet intermodal facility is a surprise. Like Carl, I’m a little puzzled by its construction because the existing CN Chicago IM facility is so close. But Joliet is becoming a major container “port”. The BNSF has a relatively new international only IM facility there. UP has also built a major IM facility near Joliet. Lots of warehousing and distribution center buildings. I would guess CN sees a profitable party it wants to join.
The issue with Barrington seems to be an attempt by the Village of Barrington to build a wall around itself to keep the plebeians out. Several years ago, it fought attempts by the RTA to study a possible circumferential suburban rail operation on the EJ&E between Barrington and Naperville, connecting several major existing routes. The stated fear was that the additional trains would create congestion in the business district.
She seemed pretty reasonable yesterday. I chatted with her for a few minutes. My guess is that the relationship with CN is at an easy truce for now.
To her credit, there is no underpass/overpass in her community. We know this is a high rent district. As an elected official it is her job to look out for her citizens. It was brought up by another attendee that the residents were sold property based on certain assumptions (made by realtors) and things changed. Barrington certainly receives the benefit of the UP Metra service, but added “up to 80 MONSTER trains a day” would be a major change. BTW, the “MONSTER TRAINS” description was brought up by a group called TRAC and not Barrington.
Hey, I live in Valparaiso and we have CN thru town. They run MONSTER TRAINS and have to deal with a 1% grade EB. Last week they had a 12000 foot intermodal. I love it as a shareholder, but as a resident it is an issue. Fortunately we have one overpass in town Before UP added DPUs to the coal trains, we would have a couple of stalled trains per week, perhaps more. I dont recall the last stall…it has been months.
I do not think it is reasonable to block an entire town for extended periods of time. Dont care if the railroads were there first. On the other hand there needs to be reasonable expectations. I overheard the conversation about the broken knuckle, but didnt listen in.
It will be interesting to see how CSX handles the Elsdon sub takeover (Friday) with increased traffic moving thru the residential southwest side of Chicago. Look for sparks to fly at some point in the future.
Ed
CSX already handles a lot of traffic on the Blue Island Sub with a bunch of grade crossings between 87th Street and 127th Street. That area is also residential with a quiet zone established.