CN fined $250K for not reporting all blockages

The federal government has levied a $250,000 fine against Canadian National charging the railroad company “knowingly violated” orders to report how additional traffic from the 2008 Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad Co. purchase affected certain crossings.

A third-party audit requested by the Suburban Transportation Board claims that from November to December 2009 CN failed to report 1,443 instances of crossing gates that were down for 10 minutes or more. CN officials reported 14.

CN officials maintain they weren't trying to mislead anyone. It's the first such fine administered by the three-member Surface Transportation Board, which was established in 1996.

CN submits monthly and quarterly reports to the STB outlining how the merger affects traffic over all of its crossings. The STB ordered the reports when it approved CN's purchase of the EJ&E on Dec. 24, 2008, over the protests of several suburbs including Barrington.

CN officials testified in April before the STB on the matter. They said the discrepancy stemmed from reporting only instances when crossings were blocked from stopped trains. Slow-moving trains could block crossings, among other causes.

“We're disappointed with the board's conclusions and impositions of the fines against CN,” CN spokesman Patrick Waldron said. “At no time did CN mislead or attempt to mislead the STB or local leaders or the general public through its ongoing reporting.”

The STB considered a steeper fine in the millions, but decided that even though CN should have known the type of information the STB requested, that their record of compliance showed cooperation.

The STB approved the EJ&E purchase despite protests from Chicago-area communities who said the merger would clog their roads with multiple trains, and more noise.

CN is using the former EJ&E tracks to move trains around Chicago instead of sending all their freight through the city's congested rail lines.

Waldron also said CN has reached mitigation agreements with 26 of 33 communities affected by the EJ&E purchase and said the rest of the third-party audit “validates our overall compliance efforts” with the STB.