Metra Madness

One of the goofiest aspects of the entire CN/EJ&E Acquisition saga has to be the response of Metra. In a filing submitted to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on January 28, 2008, Metra requested,

* Immediate trackage rights between Mileposts 7.5 and 42.5 on the EJ&E West Subdivision (presumably for STAR Line service).

* Consideration of future trackage rights from Joliet to Lynwood, IL and from Hoffman Estates to Waukegan, IL.

* Priority to new Southeast Service over the Chicago Heights, IL interlocking.

* Control of the interlockings at West Chicago and Barrington, IL be transferred from EJ&E to Metra immediately.

It should be noted that Metra and the EJ&E have not even started discussions regarding a Purchase of Service Agreement (PSA) for the proposed STAR Line service. Metra’s 1999 Commuter Rail Feasibility Study says,

“The exact nature of any service agreement would be subject to negotiation and agreement between Metra and the EJ&E.”

Looks like Metra decided to skip the negotiation and agreement “stages” of the process and move directly to taking over the track.

According to Metra’s own 1999 engineering study of the route,

“EJ&E management stated that their track capacity would be needed for present and future operations”.

This statement would seem to indicate that there is virtually no track capacity on the EJ&E today for STAR Line commuter rail service, irrespective of what CN does or does not do. So why is CN the bad guy here?

Metra’s actions of course beg two very obvious questions. First, if this route is as critical as Metra says it is why didn’t Metra buy the EJ&E itself? It’s only $300 million. And second, what was Metra thinking?

As far as we can tell this is the first time in the entire history of Metra (and RTA) that these kinds of extreme and outrageous demands have ever been made from a railroad merger. Think back to the myriad of railroad mergers that have occurred during the last 15 years involving Burlington Northern, Canadian National (twice), C&NW, Illinois Central, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific (twice) and Wisconsin Central. Metra seemed to survive all those mergers just fine without these kinds of excessive demands.

If you analyze Metra’s demands at face value they just don’t add up. Let’s look at Barrington Tower. Metra is concerned about potential interference from Canadian National freight trains at the Barrington crossing. This crossing is located on Union Pacific’s Harvard Subdivision, used by Metra’s UP-Northwest Service running between Chicago and Harvard, IL.

Canadian National is forecasting 20 freight trains per day across the Barrington interlocking after the acquisition where today EJ&E operates only 5. But further east on the Harvard Subdivision, at Deval Crossing (in Des Plaines), the CN currently operates 19 freight trains per day through the crossing. So, according to my math, today there is already potential interference from a total of 24 CN and EJ&E freight trains crossing Metra’s UP-Northwest Route. Did we miss something here or does Metra need a new calculator?

The other demand, based on equally dubious logic, involves Metra’s proposed Southeast Service Route, between Chicago La Salle Street Station and south suburban Crete, IL. This service would use a busy, congested mainline between Dolton and Crete jointly belonging to CSXT and Union Pacific, that crosses the EJ&E at grade in Chicago Heights, IL.

While the start-up of Southeast Service is still several years away, apparently our friends at Metra have no faith in CN’s ability to operate the Chicago Heights crossing in a safe and efficient manner. But here’s another example where Metra’s math is a little fuzzy.

Canadian National already crosses the Southeast Service Route in south suburban Thornton, operating an average of 23 freight trains per day there now, with about 9 EJ&E freight trains per day crossing the same line further south at Chicago Heights (that’s a total of 32). After the EJ&E acquisition about 6 trains per day would continue to operate via Thornton, and CN estimates an average of 27 trains per day would roll through the Chicago Heights crossing (that would be a total of 33).

So today you have potential interference from an average of 32 freight trains (CN + EJ&E combined) crossing the Southeast Route, and after the acquisition you would have potential interference from an average of 33 freight trains crossing the same exact route. Well, my calculator says that’s a net increase of 1 train per day. Did we miss anything or is this another example of the absurdity of Metra’s demands?

Both the content and tone of Metra’s demands are insulting and demeaning. Canadian National has a well-deserved reputation in the railroad industry as a competent and efficient operator that pioneered the concept of a scheduled freight railroad. On Metra’s North Central Route, between Chicago and Antioch, CN has already demonstrated that they can successfully co-exist with commuter passenger trains.

But the best evaluation of Metra’s demands comes from none other than the Union Pacific Railroad. In a scathing rebuttal to Metra’s filing, submitted to the STB on March 13, 2008, UP concludes, “we believe the conditions are unnecessary, and some of them could be counterproductive. Accordingly UP opposes them and requests they not be imposed.”