Amtrak claims CN is delaying trains

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A Canadian National freight train passes through the signalled crossing. | Sun-Times Media file photo

Updated: March 15, 2012 8:14AM

Canadian National Railway is facing complaints again that its trains block traffic. This time the complaint is from Amtrak, not drivers.

Amtrak wants federal rail regulators to investigate CN’s role in slowing down passenger trains on their way to Joliet and other destinations out of Chicago.

Amtrak trains running from Chicago to Joliet are late more than 20 percent of the time. That’s better than some other passenger lines coming out of Chicago, but Amtrak is attributing the problem to CN, according to the complaint filed in January with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

CN-imposed freight interference delayed 99 percent of its trains for the City of New Orleans service in 2011, Amtrak said in the complaint.

Amtrak also noted that delays in trains running to Joliet threaten the viability of plans for high-speed rail service in the Chicago-St. Louis corridor.

“Gains we make by reducing travel time south of Joliet can be, if not erased, hurt by delays from Chicago to Joliet,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Monday.

The complaint notes at one point that the federal government has spent more than $1 billion on rail improvements south of Joliet to allow passenger trains to travel speeds up to 110 mph.

“The benefits of this significant investment will be sharply curtailed if the same trains that the investment is intended to benefit continue to encounter high levels of CN-responsible delay in the Chicago-Joliet segment,” the complaint states.

Amtrak contends that CN is violating federal law that gives passenger trains right of way over freight when they have competing railroad needs.

A CN spokesman said the company is preparing a response to the Amtrak complaint for a March 9 deadline set by the Surface Transportation Board.

“We had been discussing this matter for months in 2011, and I’m disappointed Amtrak chose to file this action rather than continue those talks,” CN spokesman Patrick Waldron said.

CN faced opposition from numerous local governments before its December 1998 acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, which circles the Chicago metropolitan area.

Most of that opposition, however, was focused on how CN’s plan to increase use of the railroad would affect road traffic.

In late 2010, the Surface Transportation Board fined CN $250,000 for failing to report all the blockages its trains were causing on the former EJ&E tracks. It was the first fine ever issued by the board.

However, New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann, whose town was concerned about the consequences of the CN purchase, said he has not heard complaints about train blockages since CN took over.

But, Baldermann added, CN freight traffic “is nowhere near the capacity they’re going to be at.”

Amtrak’s complaint is focused on routes that head south and east out of Chicago.

They are the Lincoln, which runs through Joliet on the way to St. Louis; the Texas Eagle, which also runs through Joliet on the way to San Antonio; the City of New Orleans that runs to New Orleans; the Illini/Saluki that runs to Carbondale; the Blue Water that runs to Port Huron, Mich.; and the Wolverine to Pontiac, Mich.