Chicago suburbs raise red flags on Canadian National takeover of EJ&E

BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com

MATTESON, Ill. | A freight train crosses Lincoln Highway on the EJ&E tracks just south of Lynwood Village Hall every two hours and 20 minutes.

Within less than four years, that could go to one freight train every 42 minutes, according to documents handed out Tuesday at a Surface Transportation Board open house in Matteson.

"For Lynwood, that would be a miserable situation," Lynwood Mayor Eugene Williams said as he looked over maps and charts at the open house. "It's miserable now."

Lynwood is not the only community facing a sharp increase in train traffic if federal regulators approve Canadian National Railway's proposal to buy the EJ&E Railway.

From Barrington, Ill., to Gary, local officials and residents have been expressing alarm to the federal Surface Transportation Board. Tuesday's open house was the fourth held by the federal agency in its effort to determine the scope of an environmental study it will conduct on the merger.

Northwest Indiana officials and residents get their chance to comment today at a Surface Transportation Board open house at the Genesis Convention Center in Gary.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., in a comment filed with the Surface Transportation Board, blasted the one meeting in Northwest Indiana as "grossly insufficient." He called on the federal agency to have more in the future.

In Lynwood, several important economic development projects, including a casino and the proposed "STAR Line" for Metra, would be endangered by the increased train traffic, Williams said. It also would cut the village off from St. Margaret's Hospital just across the state line in Dyer.

CN officials have pointed out the plan will help reduce rail congestion in Chicago and decrease the time locomotives spend idling and pulling slow trains overall in the region.

"It's a matter of a transportation efficiency program for the greater good of the shipping community -- our customers -- that's who we're in business for," CN spokesman Jim Kvedaras said Tuesday.

Kvedaras pointed out that CN officials already are working with local communities throughout Northwest Indiana and the Chicago suburbs to alleviate any problems the rail reconfiguration might cause.

The preparation of an environmental impact statement was a key provision of an order issued by the Surface Transportation Board in December. CN had wanted to complete the merger by mid-2008, but now acknowledges it may take until the end of the year.

Phillis Johnson-Ball, Surface Transportation Board deputy section chief, said there is no hard-and-fast time line for finishing the environmental impact statement.

It will take at least one year to come up with a final statement. Another round of public hearings will take place after the preparation of a draft statement, she said.

"We are here to gather information and hear what the public has to say," Johnson-Ball said Tuesday.