Not to the scale it once was, but it will be nice to see yard activity there again.
http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=369525
ROCK ISLAND – Getting new Amtrak service to Chicago isn’t the only rail issue Quad-Cities leaders have their sights trained on.
When a local public- and private-sector group meets next month with its elected representatives in Washington, D.C., it will press for funding to move rail switchyard operations from the Columbia Park area of Rock Island to the old Rock Island Lines yard in Silvis.
‘Everything would be so much better if the switching operations could be moved to Silvis,’ Denise Bulat, director of Bi-State Regional Commission, said today.
‘Iowa Interstate (Railroad) would love to see this,’ she said of the primary owner of the Rock Island switchyard, north of 5th Avenue from 24th to 39thth streets. ‘It would help their operation; they do feel a need to expand their switching operation and it’s difficult to do with their current operation. This whole project is very much supported by the whole Quad-City area.’
A memo Ms. Bulat recently sent to the railroad chief at the Illinois Department of Transportation says the current switchyard is a ‘significant impediment to reclamation and reuse of a 100-acre, waterfront industrial property that has major redevelopment potential for the city of Rock Island.’
Activity in the yard has increased dramatically in recent years, mainly as a result of the increased storage and shipment of ethanol from regional production facilities, the memo says.
Relocation of the switchyard would allow the area to be redeveloped for a ‘higher and better use, provide the railroad with a more efficient and safe facility, and fulfill a key element of Rock Island’s Columbia Park plan.’
The city plan calls for redevelopment of these properties as a mixed-use commercial, rec
