Comment EI-24973
Received or sent (printed as 7/15/2016)
On average, 3,300 vehicles pass my house per day on Highway 34 according to IDOT. In a month, my son’s school bus will be using this highway. End of September, beginning of October, depending on the crops, my husband and father-in-law will be entering, exiting, and crossing this highway along with many other local farmers to get to their fields with tractors, grain wagons, combines, and head haulers. All with flashers and SMV signs. Fertilizer companies and local Co-Ops will add to it with their dry boxes, anhydrous rigs and tanks. Semi’s will be hauling grain from fields to the Co-Op, to our already existing rail terminal in Mendota, IL or down to ADM or Cargill Barge Terminals on the Illinois River. All while 3,300 vehicles are on this road as well. Now…. Would the unneeded, unproven, ludacris idea of the GLBT railroad be built, roads would be closed because THEY didn’t feel it was necessary to put in a crossing…. County, Township, hidden dirt paths not on maps, useless. They have just put more tractors, wagons, combines, and fertilizer equipment out on Highway 34. 3,300 vehicles, on average, per day. People in the Agriculture Industry know how important safety is. They learn, They live it, They breathe it. They do their very best to avoid situations that involve 3,300 vehicles/day. Would the GLBT project move forward, it will force them to use Highway 34 and add to the 3,300 vehicles per day. About 2:30AM this morning I woke up, heard the BNSF train that runs ¾ of a mile north of my house. I heard the horn blow as it went through the crossing, heard the Engine and the cars on the rails. I also felt our house shake. Now this train just left the town of Earlville, IL so it is moving about 45 mph? Fastest they go might be 55/60mph on any given stretch. You can follow them on Hwy 34 to Sandwich, IL. Now the proposed GLBT rail is proposed to run between my house and the existing BNSF tracks. We measured it out and it would be approximately ¼ mile from our home cutting at a diagonal through our field. Trains that would use this track are expected to run 70 mph. I can already hear BNSF at ¾ of a mile away. Google “train vibration”! Train vibration increases the rate of deterioration of homes, it also has big impacts on the human body according to a study published in May of 2013 “Effects of train noise and vibration on human heart rate during sleep: an experimental study” Ilona Croy; Michael G Smith,; Kerstin Persson Waye “Conclusions Freight trains provoke HR accelerations during sleep, and the vibration characteristics of the trains are of special importance. In the long term, this may affect cardiovascular functioning of persons living close to railways.” Wall Street Journal posted an article in July 8, 2016 that Freight rail operators cut jobs and that Railroads have cut their employment rolls by 29,600 jobs in the past 12 months. I am requesting that the STB put a stop to this farse once and for all. This proposed project is not needed, nor is it supported by the local communities and NO Class 1 Railroads are showing any support. A man or a Company with no railroad experience has any business even proposing this project, let alone build it.
Submitted by: MONICA · EARLVILLE, Illinois
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-35952/comment/EI-24973 · back to the docket sheet