Washington District of Columbia USA - Canadian National has rebutted claims that Amtrak and Canadian Pacific have made regarding its proposed acquisition of Kansas City Southern's line linking Springfield, Illinois, with Kansas City and St. Louis.
 
CN has asked the Surface Transportation Board to force CP to divest KCS's former Gateway Western Springfield Line as part of the CPKC merger.
 
This would allow CN to create a new single-line service route between Eastern Canada, Detroit, and Kansas City.
 
CN says it would invest US$250 million on the line and would ultimately divert 80,000 truckloads to intermodal annually.
 
CN also requested short segments of trackage rights on KCS, particularly to reach its intermodal terminal just south of Kansas City.
 
Last month Amtrak opposed a divestiture of the line, as CP has all along.
 
"Amtrak insists that neither the Homewood-Gilman nor the East St. Louis-Godfrey line segments can accommodate an additional 2 or 2.6 trains, respectively, without impairing passenger operations," CN told regulators in a filing on Friday.
 
"Unlike some other parties participating in the docket, Amtrak presents no capacity analysis or other study supporting its claims."
 
CN says its own routine internal analysis shows both line segments have capacity to handle additional traffic.
 
CN disputed Amtrak claims that in 2015 the freight railroad said its former Illinois Central routes lacked adequate capacity for the state-sponsored Illini/Saluki service.
 
"CN never alleged that there is insufficient capacity for then-existing or additional freight trains on the Chicago-Carbondale route generally, or the Homewood-Gilman Line Segment specifically," CN told the board, noting that there was a choke point around Champaign due to a combination of limited capacity and the scheduling of the Amtrak trains to meet in Champaign.
 
CN also aimed to shoot down Amtrak's complaints that IC should not have single-tracked its Chicago-New Orleans main line in 1988.
 
"This fact is irrelevant. At the time, ICRR (before it was owned by CN) removed the double track in conjunction with the installation of centralized traffic control, which together with abundant long sidings enabled ICRR to run more efficiently while preserving 45 percent extra capacity so that ICRR would have no trouble handling additional traffic in the future," CN said.
 
CN says that because Amtrak never chose to invest in additional capacity on the IC, it should not be able to block CN's pursuit of the Springfield Line.
 
"Amtrak is not entitled to dictate the infrastructure choices of a host railroad," CN wrote.
 
"Federal law permits a host carrier to abandon excess capacity by downgrading or removing track if Amtrak will not pay the avoidable cost of retaining it. As CN witnesses noted in 2015, although the number of Amtrak trains operating on ICRR's lines had doubled since 1971, Amtrak never offered to pay to restore the Chicago-to-New Orleans route to double track."
 
Amtrak cherry-picked statistics regarding poor on-time performance of passenger trains operating on CN's former IC, CN says, pointing out that CN freight trains accounted for only 19 percent of the 517 hours of delay reported on the Illini/Saluki service in 2019.
 
CN and Amtrak have a long-running dispute over the performance of passenger trains on the former IC.
 
CN also told the board that if it needed proof that its purchase of the Springfield Line would boost competition that regulators should look no further than a statement from CP CEO Keith Creel.
 
Creel, in an earlier filing with the STB, said a forced sale of the Springfield Line to CN would allow CN to "poach some of the traffic opportunities that CPKC would otherwise pursue in the Kansas City-Chicago lane."
 
Although it does not plan capacity improvements on the line, CP has said that the former Gateway Western trackage would be an integral part of the combined CPKC system.
 
CN Chief Marketing Officer Doug MacDonald wrote that the railway has long had an interest in the Springfield Line and has considered options that would allow CN to invest in upgrades that would allow a joint CN-KCS route to reach its full potential.
 
Details about CN's interest in the line were redacted, however.
 
"In contrast to CP's likely neglect of the Springfield Line, I believe, and the evidence in the record of this proceeding further supports, that CN is uniquely situated to transform the Springfield Line into a force to be reckoned with over this corridor. No other railroad has the incentive to invest in the Springfield Line," MacDonald wrote.
 
When CN was KCS's proposed merger partner last year, the railways touted the potential of what they called the Springfield Speedway.
 
CN disputed CP's claims that three years ago CN sought to shut down its KCS interchange at Springfield in favor of a roundabout route to East. St. Louis, Illinois.
 
The interchange was relocated solely because there wasn't enough capacity at Cockrell, Illinois, just outside of Springfield, to handle merchandise traffic.
 
Sending more traffic through the interchange, CN said, would interfere with operations to serve the major ADM facility at Cockrell.
 
The Springfield Line interchange remains open, CN says, even as it continues to route KCS interchange traffic via East St. Louis, which adds 175 miles each way.
 
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