Elaine Hopkins is all excited about the latest Surface Transportation Board ruling. The ruling was against Pioneer Railcorp and in favor of Central Illinois Railroad Company. Any defeat of Pioneer must be a ruling in favor of the trail in the minds of trail enthusiasts. As usual, the facts tell a different story.

Hopkins said: “The U.S. Surface Transportation has slapped down the most recent effort by Pioneer Railcorp to get back its operations on the Kellar Branch rail line.” Actually, this proceeding has nothing to do with the Kellar Branch line, but rather the western connection. Perhaps one could make the case that it’s related tangentially, but if Pioneer had won this proceeding, it would have done nothing to help them reestablish service on the Kellar.

Hopkins further said: “Central [Illinois Railroad Company] does not have a contract with the city to operate on the Western Connection line, but began operations as a successor company to a previous operator.” This is totally inaccurate, but it’s easy to get confused. The so-called “western connection” is actually a spur that used to be owned by the Union Pacific railroad that services growth cell two. It used to just dead end short of Pioneer Park, but the city built an 1800-foot extension (“connecting track”) so it could hook up with the Kellar Branch. So there are three pieces of track in play here: (1) the western spur, (2) the Kellar Branch, and (3) the 1800-foot connecting track. CIRY does indeed have a contract with the city to operate on the spur and the connecting track, but it only has STB authorization to operate on the spur. A contract with the city is not enough; any and all transactions must be approved by the STB. CIRY never requested authorization to operate over the connecting track; hence, they need to get authorization or cease operating. Although Carver Lumber is not currently getting any rail shipments from the west because it’s too expensive, CIRY has occasionally used the trackage to tow rail cars into storage in the Pioneer Park area.

The argument before the STB was rather complicated, but I’ll try to simplify it. CIRY was owned by DOT Rail Services, but now they’re owned by Central Illinois Railroad Holdings, LLC. The city’s contract for operating the western connection was made with DOT Rail Services, not CIRY directly. Thus, now that CIRY is owned by someone else, Pioneer challenged their authority to provide service on the western connection. The STB rejected that argument based on the legal language of the documents in question. The only argument of Pioneer’s with which they agreed was that CIRY had no authority to operate the 1800-foot connecting track.

Bottom line, this is a defeat for Pioneer, but it really has nothing to do with turning the Kellar into a walking trail. There is currently no proceeding before the STB requesting discontinuation of service on the Kellar Branch. That can only be requested by CIRY, the RTA’s preferred operator, and they haven’t done so. So the decision is not “a boost for turning the Kellar line into a trail.” In fact, Pioneer can lose all the proceedings currently before the STB and it won’t make any difference; the trail is going nowhere.

Of course, the trail could be built immediately if the Park District would simply map out an alternative route that doesn’t require removing the rail line. But it appears the goal isn’t really to build a trail any more, but to remove the rail line at any cost.