Comment EI-14132
Received or sent (printed as 9/30/2008)
I am writing in support of the CN/EJE rail aquisition. I am currently an employee of the EJE Railway, and having worked in operations for several railroads in and around Chicago, this transaction is essential to solidifying Chicago as the nations railroad hub. Many opponents have talked about building railroad bypasses further away from Chicago as a possible alternative. They truely do not understand the capital involved to undertake such a project. We also hear about this potentially taking money away from the CREATE Rail Project, which is a joint private/public partnership that has seen, very little interest from the public side of funding the projects. And with the country's current financial crunch, there appears to be little if any funding to make a significant push to finish the CREATE project. Here we have an opportunity to have a private company invest over one hundred million dollars locally to enhance the EJE railroad capacity and although more trains may come through their town or city, there are local people that run those operations. These is money being invested to improve the capacity of the railroad and with that increase capacity means lower impact on vehicular traffic. In the past local municipalities paid for the majority of overpasses and underpasses. Why should the status quo change now, because its going through a different neighborhood. No one seemed to care as much when the CSX and NS proposed shifting more traffic to the inner city neighborhood of East Cleveland, Ohio as a result of the transaction. The CN transaction is really receiving a lot of negative press in regards to who it will hurt. No one is stepping up to say what a great improvement it will make economically to our entire region. More trains into Chicago, means more people needed to move them. This in turn means more jobs for a region that can really use them. If we allow a small few to discourage this transaction, it will discourage other businesses from making investments in new business in and around our area. We don't see a many businesses making one hundred million dollar investments in the Chicago area at this time. Nor will we, anytime soon. I write this letter in support of a swift decision being made in favor of the CN aquiring the EJE West Company. Thank you.
Submitted by: William Emery Moore · Hammond, IN
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
Permanent address docketyard.org/d/FD-35087/comment/EI-14132 · back to the docket sheet