The Chicago plan: relief at last? Government and industry proponents hope that the prospect of better service nationwide will help to win a large federal contribution to a $1.5 billion unsnarling of the Chicago Terminal District, the biggest U.S. railroad bottleneck - Chicago, Illinois

Railway Age, July, 2003 by Frank Malone

A formal agreement would follow the securing of a federal commitment. The need to push the plan for TEA-21 reauthorization sparked the timing of the announcement. A spokesperson for Lipinski said on June 20 that it was not yet clear how the plan would move to Capitol Hill.

Lipinski, ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, declared that the plan was no mere "wish list" and that all the money needed would ultimately be provided.

"I think there's enough cohesive support that our project ought to do well in Washington," added George Hardwidge, Metra chief transportation officer and member of the Chicago Plan Group. "The public announcement was the watershed. From now on, there should be enough momentum to keep this going."

Last step to final mergers?

The Chicago Plan likely could not have taken shape had mergers not reduced the number of major carriers. "It is quite another thing, however, to argue that causality runs the other direction and that improvement of rail connections through Chicago makes another wave of mergers--this time, transcontinental in scope--more likely," says Bob Gallamore, director of Northwestern University's Transportation Center. "If anything, the Chicago Plan demonstrates that the railroads can work together in ways short of merger to improve interline service, even when the competitive stakes are plain for all to see. The genius of this plan is that it serves the interests of all parties without making rail mergers any more or less necessary or likely."

Streamlined corridors to relieve congestion

Railroad engineering departments, consultants, contractors, and suppliers should be ecstatic over the $1.5 billion Chicago Plan.

Five streamlined "through routes," created from existing infrastructure, would include flyovers for six critical rail-rail intersections among nearly 80 projects. Also foreseen are 49 miles of new track, centralized traffic control for the corridors' 122 route-miles, and 364 new higher-speed turnouts, plus 25 road/rail grade separations.

Many observers rank the new CN route through the city as most critical, but an NS spokesman says focusing on one corridor "wouldn't be fair to the monumental efforts that went into the development of the plan as a whole."

Following are corridor profiles in order of size:

Western Avenue: A north-south configuration including a 17-mile route largely along CSXT's Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal track from a connection with UP on the north end to Blue Island on the south, serving intermodal facilities along the way, especially CSXT's massive new 59th Street facility. Used by numerous railroads, this route would include a flyover at the Brighton Park crossing with CN, Metra, and Amtrak. It also includes a 14-mile segment running east on Belt Railway of Chicago track from the Forest Hill junction with the BOCT line and then south on UP track to UP's Yard Center intermodal facility on the way to the Thornton Jct. connection with CN.

Beltway: A 30-mile route running outside the city from Franklin Park on the north along Indiana Harbor Belt (owned by NS, CSXT, and CPR), BOCT, and CN tracks to Thornton Jct. on the south. It would link UP's Proviso Yard with the huge Clearing Yard of the Class I-owned BRC on the southwest side of the city and three major yards farther south.