Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130529/BLOGS02/130529793/

Plan floated for $3 billion Chicago rail bypass

Would Chicago's often-congested freight rail system run more smoothly if someone built a toll railroad to bypass the city to the south?

Some may call that sensible, and others so much pie in the sky. Either way, a pair of civic and transportation activists are going to unveil a proposal to do just that during a lunch today at DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.

Under the plan, a six-track, freight-only rail line would be built between Coal City, Ill., and Wellsboro, Ind., in a portion of the right-of-way that transit officials hope to acquire for the proposed Illiana Expressway.

The line could be extended farther west later.

The $3 billion structure faces all kinds of obstacles, not least among them the fact that the Illiana Expressway still is just a dream. But the idea of getting private investors to put up money that would be repaid by railroads paying charges to use the tracks does have a certain big-picture beauty to it. That would make the line something like a public utility.

And the plan is not inconsistent with a variety of ones offered by local groups through the years. Other funding would come from a federal transit loan program.

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If built, the so-called Illiana Rail Bypass would be a breakthrough for logistics, says Chaddick Institute Director Joe Schwieterman. He terms it a railroad for the 21st century an outer-ring version of the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway unit of the Canadian National Railway that runs farther to the north and west. But this one might be less controversial because it would run in less populated areas.

The idea is coming from former software company owner and ex-Union League of Chicago President Frank Patton, who has formed a private company named Great Lakes Basin LLC to seek private financing, and Occam Consulting Group's Jim Giblin, a transit consultant who is working as a technical adviser on the project.

Mr. Giblin notes that a third of the rail traffic arriving here now is strictly moving through the region on its way somewhere else. Moving those trains along faster would reduce delays here and possibly attract more warehousing business to the region by making access more efficient, he says. And several major carriers could use the line without fearing that they'd be helping a competitor, since none of them would own it.

I'm told that the Illinois Department of Transportation, while officially neutral on the proposal, is supportive enough that it has urged Mr. Patton to flesh out the idea and prepare a needed Environmental Impact Statement. That's similar to the department's prior stance on the expansion of O'Hare International Airport and expressway access to the airfield.

Maybe it will fly . . . er, roll.