WASHINGTON — Four federal legislators from Illinois have repeated a call for the Surface Transportation Board to delay a decision on the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger until the STB undertakes a separate assessment of the merger’s impact on the Chicago area.
That decision could come as soon as the end of this month. The STB is required to wait at least 30 days after the release of its final Environmental Impact Statement before issuing its decision; that environmental report was released Jan. 27 [see “Final environmental review finds few problems …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 27, 2023].
The Friday, Feb. 17, letter from U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Delia Ramirez, all Democrats, reiterates a request for delay made in October by Durbin, Krishnamoorthi, and members of the suburban Coalition to Stop CPKC over concerns about the merger’s traffic and safety impacts [see “Chicago-area opponents ask regulators to delay decision …,” News Wire, Oct. 5, 2022].
The letter, included in a press release, says the STB’s final Environmental Impact Statement “significantly underestimates the impacts of the merger” and ask the board to conduct an analysis of those impacts “using modeling provided by Metra or by conducting its own independing modeling. This would more accurately assess the impacts on Illinois communities, determine appropriate mitigation measures, and meet the STB’s obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act.”
While Canadian Pacific’s modeling projects freight traffic on the line through suburbs served by Metra’s Milwaukee West line will increase from three to 11 freight trains per day, Metra’s modeling says the number could be 18 per day, the letter says. “Moving forward with a decision on the merger without further analysis risks overlooking serious adverse impacts on these communities,” the letter says.
The group of communities, as well as DuPage County, have been well-organized and vocal opponents of the merger, packing a public hearing in Itasca, Ill. [see “Chicago suburbs focus on safety …,” News Wire, Sept. 13, 2022], and testifying at the STB’s merger hearings [see “CP and KCS tout and defend their merger …,” News Wire, Sept. 28, 2022]. At one point, they sought more than $9 billion in projects to mitigate merger impacts, although that figure had been reduced to $400 million by the time of the STB hearing.
Reuters reports that CP declined to comment, while a board spokesman said the STB “takes all filings seriously, including those submitted by Congress, and will consider them as they deliberate.”
Mr. Shapp your comments about Rondout are also nothing more than opinion or speculation. My valid point is still if it aint broke why fix it??? But the larger question is why do you hate Canadians so much? What have they ever done to you?
Both CPR and CN are equal members of the Assocation of American Railroads.
Canadian Pacific’s investment in US railroading is entirely consistent with both the original and current versions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This was a trade agreement signed by a US president and ratified by a US Congress. As such CPR’s ownership is ENTIRELY consistent with both US and Canadian foreign policy.
If you check the factual record, you will find this so-called “foreign” corporation is actually a publicly owned corporation whose shares are traded on both the NYSE and the Toronto Stock Exchange. And if you check the actual ownership records you will find that US citizens, pension funds and retirement funds own large amounts of both CPR and CN stock.
…and dispatching is handled out of the Twin Cities (soon to be Kansas City). By law, U.S. railroads *must* be dispatched from U.S. soil (CN does the same from south suburban Homewood). So the whole “dispatching by a foreign railroad” argument is completely moot.
METRA is acting as if this is an unprecedented increase in freight traffic on a main line railroad. I challenge their assumptions by asking how many freight trains ran in the heyday of the Milwaukee Road, or how many run now on the lines also occupied by BNSF and UP? Methinks they doth protest too much.
The dirty little secret here is that the Milwaukee West Line is the unwanted stepchild of Metra. Those are Chicago’s forgotten suburbs out there. The Milwaukee North Line is CPR’s primary freight line into Chicago and also handles the run through traffic for eastern Canada via NS trackage rights. Plus, the Amtrak trains which Durbin has always been only too happy to take credit for on the funding side. He has never done a damn thing for the communities along the West Line. There has never been any strong local or regional constituency for big investments on the West Line beyond the western tollway extension at O’Hare. The politicians out there see this as their last desperate chance to get some improvements by trying to blackmail CPR, and Durbin is happy to play along.
Mr. Shapp, I think you are being a bit disingenuous here. You and I both know the story on the Milwaukee North Line is called Amtrak. Amtrak operates 14 trains per day between Chicago and Milwaukee plus the Empire Builder and now a new Chicago to Twin Cities train. Keeping the entire TC to Chicago Union Station mainline under single operating control makes a lot of sense. CP’s record with Amtrak is actually pretty good, compared to most railroads. So why upset the apple cart. In my opinion it would be dumb to set up a new artificial operating barrier at Rondout on this route. Also why have we seen very few comments room Amtrak here???
Mr. Giblin: First of all the second Amtrak train Between Chicago and the Twin Cities isn’t operating yet and the way things are going at Amtrak it may never be. Secondly, you are being disingenuous if you think Rondout couldn’t be a perfectly workable “handoff” point between Metra and CP. Have you got skin in the game here? Bottom line is Metra has a train dispatching center and there is no precedent for a foreign national freight railroad to have dispatching rights over a U.S. taxpayer supported commuter/regional railroad that actually owns the railroad and is responsible for ALL the engineering functions. The most egregious situation here is the Fox Lake Sub. CP operates NO traffic on it!!!! Yet it has dispatching rights. Mr. Giblin, it is only because the politicians in the territories covered by the Metra Milw District haven’t, like all politicians, a clue about what makes a railroad run ( and THEY NEVER RIDE) that this situation has not come to a head in all these years since the Metra CCF opened. And please don’t tell me the railroad is “Amtrak”. Remember the “First Battle of Glenview” where ILDOT and WisDOT wanted capacity expansion to support three more CHI-MKE roundtrips? Adding those trains was sooooooo important that as soon as Glenview (and Lake Forest too, I understand) went nuts and the former threatened lawsuits ILDOT caved. So please quit with the “Amtrak”.
Amtrak, Amtrak, Amtrak. Over the past 20 years I have been a regular patron of the Milwaukee Service for both business and pleasure. With 16 trains daily this is one of the busiest corridors in the Chicago Region and in the US outside of the NE and Southern California.
Second, the comment about the second Chicago – TC train seemed appropriate since most TRAINS readers know this service is now the active planning stage.
Third, splitting the dispatching at Rondout is simply a DUMB idea. Common sense says that anytime you add complexity to an operation that currently works flawlessly you are bound to create problems. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Fourth in terms of total tonnage and carloads (freight and passenger) CPR is clearly the dominant user of the Milwaukee North Line.
Too late for that. It’s been 2 years, time to move on and better the economy in North America with this deal.
Posturing for the party in an election year. All for the sake of optics.
What election year…this is 2023, not 2024.
FYI, there is a certain silliness to this debate. According to Crain’s Chicago Business daytime employment in the Loop is still only 50 percent of what it was before the pandemic. And now just about everyone in the Chicago Region works from home on Fridays. The nearly empty Loop office buildings are being converted to apartments, condominiums and student housing for downtown universities.
In terms of current average weekly ridership passenger volume, the Milwaukee West Line was ranked 8th of a total of 11 specific routes. Only Heritage, Southwest and North Central routes ranked lower in terms of total ridership. Milwaukee West Line riders also have two excellent nearby back-up options in terms of the BNSF and Union Pacific West Lines.
BTW, Marty Oberman is a long-time Chicago politician and former Metra Chairman, and he probably understands this situation better than most. This is a classic case of politicians pandering to their constituents.
Mr. Giblin: Reduced ridership on the Metra Milw West aside (and while we are at it, what about the Milw North?) Metra has been saying it would oppose the merger unless CP conveyed the train dispatching of both lines to them. Metra has been responsible for all main track engineering functions probably back to when the Northern IL Commuter Railroad Corp (NIRCRC) was formed. But agreements that I think go back to the Soo Line acquisition of the Milw Road gave the dispatching to present day CP. Don’t you think something is wrong here. Metra owns the railroad. I ask you, is there any other U.S. taxpayer-funded commuter/regional railroad where the train dispatching is done by a foreign national freight railroad? It’s not like Metra doesn’t have its own centralized train dispatching center. It does. I worked there from 1995 until retirement in 2007. I have to ask whether former Metra Board Chair Oberman knows this and if he does why has this subject not been front and center in this struggle? With the dispatching in Metra’s hands they, the entity that owns the railroad, owns the the commuter equipment, and employs the crews, decides the priority of trains. Isn’t that the way it should be? But it seems open to question if that is an issue for the STB.
Mr. Giblin: You still refuse to deal with the inappropriateness of a US taxpayer-supported passenger railroad that actually owns the property and is responsible for all main track engineering functions having its trains controlled by a foreign national freight railroad. Bet you can’t tell me where else in the US this situation exists. You must have a vested interest in this fight. Spill it.
Your opinion that having Rondout a dispatching handoff point is “dumb” is just that. It’s your opinion. And again, if Amtrak was such a factor then how come the plan for a modest expansion advanced by IL and WI DOTs got trashed? It did because IL DOT didn’t think Amtrak CHI-MKE was important enough to take the heat from the spoiled rich brats in Glenview and Lake Forest.