LeCLAIRE, Iowa — Another eastern Iowa community has approved an agreement with Canadian Pacific over the railroad’s planned merger with Kansas City Southern, while a city which rejected an earlier offer is now on record opposing the merger.
KWQC-TV reports that LeClaire, Iowa, will receive $750,000 to address impacts of the merger under an agreement approved Tuesday by its city council. LeClaire — like neighboring Davenport and Bettendorf, which have also approved deals with CP — are on a segment of the railroad that could see freight traffic increase from eight to 22 trains per day, according to the CP-KCS merger application.
Like prior agreements, the funding for LeClaire, a town of 4,710, is contingent on approval of the merger.
Meanwhile, Camanche, further north from LeClaire, has unanimously approved a resolution opposing the merger. Camanche had previously turned down a $200,000 offer from CP, with its mayor calling the offer “very offensive” [see “Iowa town turns down CP offer …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 18, 2022].
LeClaire Mayor Dennis Gerard said the decision came after the city hired a consultant to study the potential impacts of the merger, and will develop a plan for the funds based on that study which it will present to the public. Gerard also said the city can pursue grants to help mitigate the impacts of increased rail traffic.
The Surface Transportation Board will hold a series of in-person public hearings next week on the environmental impact of the merger, including a Sept. 13 session in Davenport. Other meetings are set for Sept. 12 in Itasca, Ill.; Sept. 14 in Excelsior Springs, Mo.; and a Sept. 15 meeting recently relocated to Beaumont, Texas. Online public meetings are today (Sept. 7), Wednesday, Sept. 8, and Monday, Sept. 19. More information is available here.
I wonder if this town, and the others, derive their existence from the arrival of the railroad back in the 19th century.
Good! Maybe LeClaire can take down one of its notorious speed cameras with this payout from CP. To Jim Salisbury’s comment above – the only shakedown happening in LeClaire is the city doing so to unsuspecting motorists.
Does anyone really believe CPKCS will produce an additional 12 trains a day? 🙂
I wish them another 20 trains a day. That’s not likely to happen either.
Hey boss, “which of these parked trains is the one with trash?”
“I don’t know. Follow your nose.”
How long have the neighbors downwind of the tracks put up with the smell of trash festering in the August sun? Have they complained, too?
Looks more like a shakedown by the mob.
I wonder if Camanche has “cut off its nose to spite its face” so to speak. I doubt its resolution against the merger will have any relevance to the STB.
I guess they’ll never see the $$$$$ that CP offered.
As for CP, I wonder when they’ll wake up that once you start paying out Protection, it never ends.
To quote the late Jim McClellan on Cleveland: “The clock was ticking, and submitting to blackmail was the only alternative”