BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com
GARY | Gary Jet Center owner Wil Davis knows the world is not always a pretty place.
Piloting a Huey Gunship helicopter in Vietnam and the day-to-day hassles of running a business taught him that.
But there's one piece of ugliness he just can't get out of his sights these days. It's the embankment and tracks that carry EJ&E Railway trains less than 200 feet from the west end of the Gary/Chicago International Airport's main runway.
"The FAA says its illegal," Davis said last week as he drove his pickup truck out to the tracks. "It's been grandfathered in, but they say it has to go."
Davis blames the three railroads the airport has been negotiating with for years for the impasse in getting the tracks out of the way. And now he blames a fourth, Canadian National Railway, which is attempting to clear regulatory hurdles to purchase the EJ&E.
Lawyers for CN recently sent a 15-page interrogatory to the airport that Davis and airport officials fear could further delay moving the tracks. The airport originally wanted construction underway this year.
Tracks hold up expansion
On the ride to the end of the runway in his pickup, Davis explained the 30-foot high embankment and the trains that ride on it effectively shorten the 7,000-foot runway by approximately 1,000 feet.
It has led the loss of prospects like Allegiant Air, which once scouted the airport as a takeoff point for its leisure-destination passenger service.
The tracks also stand in the way of the airport's plans to expand the main runway by almost 2,000 feet. The airport has secured $57.8 million from the Federal Aviation Administration for that project, but must use the money in a timely fashion or lose it.
CN has vigorously defended what it calls it's "constructive role" in negotiations dealing with the issue of moving the tracks. It did so most recently in a letter from CN CEO E. Hunter Harrison to U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.
"There is no basis to blame the EJ&E track for being located next to the airport," Harrison wrote. "This railroad was operating through Gary at the beginning of the 20th century, before the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk."
Harrison also pointed out that though his railroad does not own the EJ&E, it has presented "alternative solutions" in negotiations that would address its own rail service concerns.
Airport director Chris Curry said negotiations with railroads continue. Most recently, the Northwest Indiana Forum, which is playing a key role in those talks, sent a memo to all four railroads outlining the basic tenets of a solution.
So, far, railroads have not formally responded, Curry said.
Recent progress at stake?
Davis' business has been a linchpin for the airport for the last 18 years.
His office is festooned with models of the aircraft he has flown, such as the Huey Gunship and A-4 attack fighter jet. Alongside them are wedding photos and one of the family's most recent arrival, his new grandson.
His aircraft maintenance and charter business has thrived in recent years with the upsurge in corporate jet travel. Those flights continue to increase at a clip of about 20 percent per year.
Other major airport tenants include Boeing Corp., White Lodging Services Corp. and NiSource Inc., all of which house their corporate jet fleets there.
Davis said the airport as a whole is currently making more progress than at any time in the 18 years he has been operating there. He ticked off several new developments to prove it.
A $15 million Indiana National Guard flight readiness center is almost complete on the south side of the airport. A $10 million armory is going up next door. A second hangar for the Gary Jet Center, representing a $5 million investment by Davis, is nearly complete on the north side of the airport.
An FAA project last year added new navigation aids that increase landing opportunities at Gary. And a new airline that is the talk of the industry, Skybus Airlines, will begin flying to Gary twice daily from a hub at Greensboro, N.C., on Thursday.
But when he looks out to the west end of the main runway, Davis sees all that progress going up in smoke. And he blames the railroads.
"They are holding the development of this airport and the safety of people who use it hostage," Davis said. "It's not good for Northwest Indiana. It could hold up this airport forever."