Chicago Illinois USA - The howls from west suburbanites over the freight rail merger last week must have reverberated with a few Lake County officials.
 
They tried in the last decade to stop a similar corporate takeover, to little avail.
 
They must have had a sense of deja vu considering another Canadian railroad again was intruding into the quality of life in Illinois.
 
This time it is the Canadian Pacific, the last time it was the Canadian National Railway.
 
Because of its location, the Chicago region is the busiest rail hub in the nation, and one of the most congested.
 
Six of the nation's largest railroads, and nearly 1,300 trains pass through the area daily, according to one estimate.
 
We are a key transfer point for east-west traffic, and deal with about one-third of the nation's rail freight cargo.
 
Motorists on the Tri-State Tollway can see that daily in the traffic at the Franklin Park intermodal rail yard as they travel the infamous Bensenville Bridge.
 
According to Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago," it has been so since 1914 when besides being "Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat," the city and its environs was, "Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler"
 
Mundelein, where Carl Sandburg dedicated the school which bears his name in the fall of 1959, gets more than its share of rail traffic from the CN's two lines which bisect the town.
 
Despite this, dozens of multi-housing units are being built in the village's downtown, right next to the busy CN tracks.
 
There's no doubt communities across the region and state are tied to railroads, economically, and historically.
 
Indeed, one study a few years ago determined two-thirds of Americans live within a mile of a railroad line.
 
In most cases, railroads were here first.
 
That's also true of Lake County.
 
From Metra lines to the Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, and Canadian National, railroad tracks crisscross the county at numerous at-grade crossings and overpasses.
 
A few county communities, such as Gurnee, were named for railroad executives when folks back in the last century lobbied hard for train stops for their towns.
 
Today, trains are considered bothersome as motorists are stuck at crossings watching as hundreds of railroad cars fly by.
 
Then there's the threat of derailments, as witnessed by the recent Ohio environmental disaster caused by trains carrying toxic chemicals jumping the tracks.
 
Which is one of the reasons a consortium of west suburban officials strongly opposed last week's US$31 billion merger of the Canadian Pacific and the Kansas City Southern, which offers a direct rail link for the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
 
The chief reason, though, is more and longer trains rumbling through their communities day and night.
 
Or locomotives idling roughly for hours on rail sidings.
 
Lake County officials also fought the good fight in the mid-2000s as they opposed the Canadian National's acquisition of the Elgin Joliet & Eastern Railway from Waukegan to Barrington and points south.
 
After years of wrangling before the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, the CN in 2009 was awarded the 198 mile EJ&E outer belt loop, which snakes through Lake County, skirts the west suburbs, and ends in northwest Indiana.
 
Some 33 communities battled the CN purchase of "The J," as the EJ&E was affectionately known by rail buffs, just like the west suburban officials have done the past few years.
 
Opponents of the purchase by the CN, which once also eyed the Kansas City Southern line, found an unwilling arbiter in the transportation board, which turns out is the BFF of American railroads.
 
The same now has happened with the Canadian Pacific purchase, as the rail board ignored pleas by the latest consortium.
 
Perhaps the disappointed mayors and lawmakers thought they had a kindred spirit in rail board Chairman Martin Oberman, a former Chicago alderman and Metra board member.
 
Unlike old soldiers, former Illinois pols don't just fade away, they get appointed to cushy government jobs.
 
Prior to the CN taking over the EJ&E, county officials, especially those in the Barrington area, predicted freight traffic and length of trains would increase exponentially.
 
It is believed upward of at least 20 long trains a day now run on the line.
 
The same train traffic frequency is expected with the latest rail merger.
 
Proponents of the sale say more train traffic will take some 64,000 semi-trailers out of circulation on U.S. roads, according to a story in the 16 Mar 2023 News-Sun.
 
Proponents also say railroads provide alternatives to trucking and supply-chain logistics.
 
The Canadian Pacific has pledged to add more than 800 high-paid union jobs and improve service for regional Amtrak routes.
 
That sounds swell.
 
Except for those along the rails who will endure increasing train horns in the night, blocked grade crossings, and potential industrial hazards.
 
Charles Selle.