STB hearing: Anti-CPKC coalition reduces funding ask; Metra wants dispatch rights
10/5/2022
By Julie Sneider, Senior Associate Editor
Although the eight Chicago suburban communities represented by the Coalition to Stop CPKC still oppose the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, the group has dramatically downsized its “want” list of infrastructure investment by CPKC if the Surface Transportation Board approves the transaction.
The coalition is now requesting $400 million — down from its original request of $9.5 billion — from the two Class Is to implement mitigation measures that would reduce the merger’s negative impacts on their communities. CP and KCS rejected the coalition’s proposal for mitigation and instead offered $10 million, but the coalition rejected that offer.
Last week, during the STB’s multiday hearing on the CP and KCS application to combine their operations and form CPKC, the coalition’s leaders described how the merged entity would increase safety hazards, environmental degradation, noise, commuter-rail delays, and truck and vehicle traffic due to blocked grade crossings.
The coalition’s speakers also described how CPKC’s proposed increase in freight train traffic through the area would negatively affect Chicago commuter railroad Metra. The northeast Illinois communities of DuPage County, the cities of Eglin and Wood Dale and the villages of Bartlett, Bensenville, Hanover Park, Roselle and Schaumburg late last year formed the coalition to fight the merger. Chicago serves as one of CP’s largest intermodal freight hubs. Although KCS does not currently operate in the Chicago area, the merged railroad would result in a much higher level of freight-rail traffic through their communities, coalition leaders say.
When the coalition formed, the communities’ leaders said they wanted $9.5 billion for mitigation projects that would include crossing upgrades, new bridges, interchanges and overpasses and impact vibration dampener. (Editor’s note: To read more about the coalition’s opposition to the CP-KCS merger, read this article posted June 23 on RailPrime.
CP and KCS rejected the mitigation proposal, but the Class Is’ executives told STB members at the hearing they remain open to working with local communities — without identifying any by name — to address concerns about the merger’s local impacts, and has reached agreements to mitigate potential risks.
The Coalition to Stop CPKC say their localities are unique because they’re based in a national rail hub, along highly congested roadways and make up one of the most densely populated areas in the nation. The group’s counsel, Thomas Wilcox, testified at the hearing that the amended post-merger operating plan that CP and KCS have submitted to the board “substantially underestimates the number of trains that CPKC will move in the first three years after the merger.” The track CP uses through the area now is owned by Metra, although CP dispatches trains on the line.
CP officials have said additional traffic resulting from the merger would fall within historical norms and that the merger itself would provide many benefits to the communities, such as the removal of truck traffic from regional highways.
“Over our 40-year history with CP, we’ve seen numerous issues with the way CP dispatches trains on our lines.” — Jim Derwinski, Metra metra.com Still, coalition members testified that CP and KCS conducted no RTC modeling of their projected operations on the rail lines that run through their communities.
“We think this is a critical mistake,” Wilcox said, adding that when RTC modeling is applied to the Class Is’ post-merger projections the “rail system breaks.” He also stated that, according to Metra, CP currently doesn’t limit its freight service to non-peak Metra commuter times as expected in an agreement between Metra and the Class I.
“The bottom line is their operating plan … is not reliable and creates potential problems,” he added.
Blocked crossings, delayed response times
From the coalition’s perspective, potential problems include an increase in blocked grade-crossings. Currently, there are 54 crossings in coalition communities involving 30 roadways that carry more than 250,000 cars each day, according to Christopher Snyder, an engineer and director of transportation for DuPage County.
A coalition-commissioned study determined the accumulative increase in down gate times as more freight trains travel through those crossings will be “staggering,” Snyder testified.
“Over the course of the year, there will be more than 4 million more vehicles blocked at those crossings,” he said, adding that the idling of all those cars will result in wasted fuel, more air pollution and a loss in productivity due to workers stuck in cars waiting for trains to pass.
Moreover, the merger would have serious safety implications for the area, Wood Dale Fire Protection District Chief James Burke told the board.
“This proposed merger would create serious problems for public safety and create detrimental issues for the safety of our residents,” Burke said. The rail line CPKC trains would use runs through the center of all eight communities, creating “unique challenges for first responders” whose stations or headquarters are located along one side of the tracks or the other. More freight trains would result in more blocked crossings, which would require police, fire and EMS teams to take alternate routes that will lengthen response times to 911 calls, he said.
Itasca Village Administrator Carie Anne Ergo lamented that coalition communities have not been allowed as much input on the potential impact of this proposed merger compared to the process used when CN acquired the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway (EJ&E). After CN announced in 2007 it would acquire the EJ&E, a merger that she was involved in as a public official, records show 22 public hearings were held and attended by more than 7,000 residents in and around Chicago.
“Every community, every police and fire department were contacted, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning and the Illinois Commerce Commission played an integral role,” Ergo told the STB. “This time it’s a proposed merger between two Class Is and it’s crickets. My question is, why did the [STB Office of Environmental Analysis] do so much less this time around?”
If the STB approves the CP-KCS merger, coalition members believe it will triple the amount of freight-rail traffic on what is now the Elgin subdivision, leading to “unaltering, and in some cases life-threatening, effects on the residents,” she said.
While the coalition initially proposed $9.5 million in mitigation projects, the coalition recently reviewed all the measures and prioritized the “absolute bare minimum” of what would be necessary in the near term should the STB approve the merger, Ergo said. Those measures would address concerns at three critical railroad crossings and three critical pedestrian crossings, she said.
“Our revised list, which we’ve shared with the merger applicants … reduces that [$9.5 billion] to just under $400 million,” she said, an amount the Class Is should be willing to pay for since “they stand to reap the benefits of the merger.”
Metra: We want dispatch authority
Following the coalition’s presentation was Metra, which also is opposed to the CP-KCS combination.
“Metra has serious concerns about the merger’s impacts — not just on the residents we serve, not just on the two lines that CP currently utilizes [in Metra’s service area], but on the entire rail network,” Metra Executive Director and CEO Jim Derwinski told the STB.
Currently, six of the seven Class Is, Metra, Amtrak and several short lines serve the Chicago rail terminal, and there is little room on the existing infrastructure for more trains, especially from CP with which Metra has had “spotty collaboration with in the past,” Derwinski said.
“Over our 40-year history with CP, we’ve seen numerous issues with the way CP dispatches trains on our lines, and we’ve progressively had to add run times to our schedules” to maintain on-time performance, Derwinski said. CP trains run along the Metra-owned Milwaukee District West Line and Milwaukee District North Line, and CP dispatches freight and commuter trains on those lines.
After doing its own analysis of CP information submitted as part of the merger process, Metra officials determined the combined Class Is’ operation would be “devastating” to Metra’s operations, both directly and indirectly, Derwinski said.
“I’m here to ask the board, in its regulatory wisdom, to assure that this unworkable merger is not approved — and if it is approved, that dispatch rights negotiated to the CP on Metra-owned lines during Metra’s infancy should be returned to Metra and that CP make certain infrastructure improvements to address any degradation of our operation in the future,” Derwinski said.
