CN/EJ&E MYTHS VS. FACTS - The Sequel

In the March 30th edition of the Chicago Tribune, our friends in Barrington paid for a full-page advertisement to once again express their strong opposition to the CN/EJ&E deal. We found the ad amusing and staggering in the amount of false information and half-truths it contained, masquerading as facts.

We thought it might interesting (and useful) to compare Barrington’s “phony facts” with some real facts.

Phony Fact 1: Rail traffic congestion in the Chicago region will not decrease as a result of this deal.

Real Facts 1: Here’s what the truth looks like.

* Freight traffic will decrease substantially on the line between Franklin Park and Leithton, a route with 19 trains per day on it now, but Metra has already staked a claim to this capacity for more passenger trains.

* Freight traffic will decrease on several CN lines in southern Cook County but many communities in that region have already asked for CN’s cooperation in an aggressive regional business development program. Unlike Barrington, some communities think that rail-based economic development’s actually a good thing.

*Ultimately this deal is a lot like the expansion of O’Hare International Airport, the rebuilding of the Dan Ryan Expressway, and the I-355 extension (which the Barrington folks probably thought were all bad ideas too). In the short-term there will be some significant reductions in congestion and delays in many locations. In the longer term, given Chicago’s natural and historic role as a global transportation hub, it’s difficult for anyone to accurately predict exactly what will occur.

Phony Fact 2: CN is trying to create a second major regional freight corridor which the region cannot afford.

Real Facts 2: Here’s what the truth looks like.

* The EJ&E, not CN, is actually the one creating the next major regional freight corridor. In the last 10 years EJ&E has successfully negotiated trackage rights agreements with BNSF, Canadian National and Union Pacific, without any regulatory oversight or environmental impact statements whatsoever.

* As a result traffic volumes have grown consistently on the EJ&E. Volume between West Chicago and Joliet has doubled in the past 10 years and continues to grow. In 2007 WOW Logistics opened a new 350,000 sq. ft. warehouse on the EJ&E in Aurora, one of the largest public warehouses in the region.

*Union Pacific built a new track connection with the EJ&E at West Chicago to handle the increased volume (like 135-car unit coal trains), and in 2005 EJ&E completed construction of a new 9,000-foot siding on its line just west of Barrington.

Phony Fact 3: CN won’t “show us the money” to pay for its fair share of grade-crossing mitigation costs.

Real Facts 3: Here’s what the truth looks like.

* According to Metra’s 1999 STAR Line Feasibility Study there are a total of 130 highway or road grade crossings on the EJ&E in Illinois. 21 percent of those grade crossings are for private roads, described in the study as “gravel” or “dirt”. Do these roads really need grade separations like opponents are demanding?

* According to the Federal Railroad Administration, “grade separations are generally funded by the States’ DOT and local communities. Railroads are not generally required to contribute.” But in this case CN has already volunteered to do so, just like CSXT and NS did in Cleveland, OH in 1999 when they acquired Conrail.

* In 2005, then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Dennis Hastert convinced American and Illinois taxpayers that we needed to pay for the mess a railroad was creating. Speaker Hastert included a $7 million earmark in the Federal Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill, SAFETEA-LU, bill for a grade crossing separation project in Elburn, IL. But the railroad(s) involved in creating that “mess” were the Union Pacific and the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad.

Phony Fact 4: This deal won’t benefit the northern Illinois economy one bit. CN intermodal trains will use Chicago “as a pass through.”

Real Facts 4: Here’s what the truth looks like.

* Chicago’s rail hub is the largest in the U.S. and the third largest intermodal container/trailer port in the world, following only Hong Kong and Singapore. Does any rational person actually believe that CN is not going to actively serve a market this size?

* Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and a huge importer of Asian goods, has a 3.5 million square foot warehouse located just south of Joliet, IL. In fact the EJ&E line runs just north of this facility. Does any rational person actually believe that CN is not going to actively serve a customer of this size in this market?

* Like air traffic at O’Hare International Airport, about one-third of rail traffic moving into the Chicago area today only “changes trains” here and keeps moving through the metropolitan region. This is true of ALL the railroads operating in the Chicago region, not just Canadian National. It’s also a well-known fact that both CN and Canadian Pacific are the only Class One freight railroads with routes that actually run through Chicago rather than terminating here.

* The flow of commuter traffic in the region is already “continuously gridlocked" in dozens of suburban communities. But the railroad causing the most commuter gridlock today is not Canadian National but rather the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, also known as Metra.

The real danger and threat to the future of economic growth in northern Illinois does not come from the Canadian National, or any railroad for that matter. It comes from communities like Columbus, OH and Memphis, TN, which are making millions of dollars of infrastructure improvements to facilitate “the free flow of commerce”, while we set up artificial barriers to commerce and engage in silly arguments about real vs. “phony” benefits.