Pay close attention to CN, EJ&E talks

I hope you'll be paying close attention to the huge fight brewing over the (takeover of the) EJ&E Railroad by CN Railroad.

Things are getting HOT. Barrington Coalition, along with Indiana communities are staging huge opposition.

CN Railroad hasn't convinced us how running 40-50 trains through these towns will be good for us. They will only fix two of the 130+ grade level crossings, expecting the U.S. taxpayer to pick up the hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Hunter Harrison from CN stiff-armed Rep. Bean and Sen. Durbin in a recent meeting which is a sure sign they could care less about us. Is that the cooperation Hunter spoke of?

CN has a dismal safety record. Two Toronto train crashes in one month shut the people-mover down for several days. Both crashes were mechanical failure indicating maintenance issues. One of the trains crashed through a building by the tracks at 1 a.m. -- homes in my neighborhood are that close. They had a head-on collision in pristine Prince George Sound and set fire to the Sound.

Noise, horns blowing all night, smoke, and crossing delays are their way of life. We don't want that type of life. Reduced tax revenues due to depreciating home values(even worse than we are seeing).

The railroad tells us through imagery how great this will be. I want facts. I want to know how much my property value will increase with 50 trains a day running by my neighborhood, up from five. How much revenue will Barrington gain with 50 trains per day stopping traffic?

How much sleep deprivation will be reduced when trains run all night and day?

The big pitch is more jobs. We have been promised jobs before. Remember the promises from Motorola when they built that big cellular plant in Hebron? They abandoned the building five years ago. It is still empty.

So please post this message and run more articles about this situation. We residents do not want to carry the burden for the region on our backs. Period.

John McLinn

Hoffman Estates