Is the Kellar Branch saved? It might be. Efforts to try to convert it to a bike trail have been dealt a serious blow.
Central Illinois Railroad Co. (CIRY), the City of Peoria’s operator for the Kellar Branch and western spur, has cooperated with the City since 2005 in seeking to close down the Kellar Branch so it could be turned into a hiking trail through town.
In a stunning reversal, CIRY at 4 p.m. Tuesday, December 5, filed with the Surface Transportation Board to withdraw its discontinuance request (i.e., its request to discontinue service over the Kellar Branch). Furthermore, whereas the City and CIRY had been using the same attorney (Thomas F. McFarland), the latest filing informs the STB that CIRY has a new attorney (John Heffner, Washington, DC) representing them.
Why the reversal? The filing states that CIRY “now wishes to withdraw the above-captioned discontinuance petition in view of new business opportunities on the line” (emphasis mine).
That’s right, there are at least two new businesses locating along the Kellar Branch that may be interested in having rail service. Along with Carver Lumber, that brings the total to three, and no doubt more businesses will locate on the line if the threat of closure is removed.
One of the potential new businesses is Globe Energy which recently purchased the building at 1610 Altorfer Drive. They provide large building energy efficiency equipment and service for Caterpillar and others. The other potential new business I’m not at liberty to divulge at this time.
However, CIRY further states, “Accordingly, CIRY will continue to provide service over this line as if it had never filed any discontinuance request.” That will be a problem. First, it could be argued that their contract with the City to serve the Kellar Branch expired when the western spur began operations. Second, even if they could prove their old contract was still in force, they would be in breach of it (again) — this time for not cooperating with the city to close the Kellar Branch. And third, the last time they tried to take a shipment up the Kellar Branch they had a runaway train, and that has made the City leery of their performance, though not leery enough to take any legal action against them to date.
What will happen next? Will the City sue CIRY for breach of contract? If so, it will be a first. They didn’t sue CIRY when they endangered the lives of Peorians with their runaway train. They didn’t sue CIRY when they didn’t provide rail service to Carver Lumber, even though they were in breach of contract then. It sure would be a slap in the face to residents and businesses if the only time they sued CIRY was when they actually wanted to start serving Carver Lumber, et. al., safely via the most cost effective route.
Will the City file an adverse continuance with the STB to throw CIRY off the Kellar Branch like they did with Pioneer and try to find yet another carrier that will cooperate with their ill-advised and increasingly futile attempts to turn the Kellar into a hiking trail?
Or will the City finally come to its senses and put an end to this nonsense once and for all and forget trying to convert this line to a trail?
Of course Pioneer Railcorp will continue its fight to be the carrier on the Kellar Branch.
Stay tuned for more twists and turns!
Great news. A potential Kellar Branch customer who services Caterpillar will make the City take notice.
Perhaps economic development is going to lead after all.
If and when the Kellar Branch is restored to service, there will immediately be two customers – Carver Lumber and O’Brien Steel Service. Globe Energy would be a third beginning sometime in 2007 and a company that does that same type of business as Bemis is trying to obtain financing to buy the Peoria Plastics building. Also, the Cohen’s Furniture warehouse will soon be available.
CIRY has shown incredible incompetence in regards to safety and in dealing with Carver Lumber so I would prefer PIRY be restored as operator. Unfortunately, there’s that little issue with O’Brien Steel.
Hadn’t you criticized CIRY and called them incompetent? Why is it good that they want the line?
DMDAVE WROTE: “Hadn’t you criticized CIRY and called them incompetent? Why is it good that they want the line?”
The city can’t unilaterally abandon its railroad, even though it owns it. The operator has to cooperate and file a joint petition with the SUrface Transportatio Board, and now that’s not going to happen. C. J. probably agrees that the City doesn’t have the stomach to try to force CIRY off and replace it with another “cooperative” shortline operator.
DMDave: It’s only good that they want the line because that means they’ve withdrawn their request to discontinue service on the Kellar Branch. That essentially means the cases before the Surface Transportation Board are closed… moot… kaput. The line can’t be abandoned now unless (a) the city gets a new carrier, (b) boots CIRY off the line like they did Pioneer, (c) gets the new carrier to file for abandonment with the STB, and (d) gets STB approval. The odds of that happening are nil. The city and park district are back to square one.
Do I want CIRY running the line? Hell no! (Sorry, Mom; pardon my language.) CIRY, in the short time it’s been “serving” businesses in Peoria, has endangered the lives of our citizens with a runaway train and subsequently cost one of our oldest local businesses tens of thousands of dollars in extra shipping costs by not running trains up the Kellar Branch. In fact, they claimed the Kellar was impassable and would take too much money to rehab. They’ve been complicit with the city in trying to take a viable railroad and shut it down. They should be run out of town on a rail — literally!
No, I’m only glad they’ve scuttled the City’s attempt to turn the Kellar Branch into a hiking/biking trail. I think the City should sell the line to Pioneer Railcorp and stop pursuing this trail-only proposition.
C. J. Wrote: “In fact, they [CIRY] claimed the Kellar was impassable and would take too much money to rehab.”
Funny, they seem to have forgotten that one, but that was when they were sharing attorney’s with the City 🙂
Great Info. I’m glad to see a great opportunity for the city being fought for. This is a great decision on CIRY’s part.
wake me up when something happens
It’s all about the money, as usual. This time, though, I’m happy about it. I don’t know if local rail advocates thought to somehow look for/recruit companies that might be interested in doing business that involves the Kellar Branch – but if you all didn’t, why didn’t you/we think of this years ago? Get more companies interested in doing business on the line and suddenly the whole picture changes!
We activists can do what we like, but it all boils down to money and economics in the end.
“I don’t know if local rail advocates thought to somehow look for/recruit companies that might be interested in doing business that involves the Kellar Branch – but if you all didn’t, why didn’t you/we think of this years ago?”
This was done by Pioneer all those years, but those interested, especially on the segment to be abandoned, may have been pressured by the city to keep quiet.
New Business, To be serviced via Keller Branch or Western connection???? Or is it CIRY`s intent to use the keller branch as rail car storage as they have in Elk Grove Village IL where they store up to 200 Liquid Petroleum Gas (HAZMAT) tank cars. Which would greatly increase revenue for the CIRY and would increase the value of there 20 year contract with the city, and when negotiating a sale of this contract to any prospective buyer means bigger $ for CIRY.
INSIDE SCOOP wrote: “New Business, To be serviced via Keller Branch or Western connection????”
Obviously, the Kellar Branch, as otherwise CIRY wouldn’t have reversed course. The new business opportunities mentioned refer to actual customers and not railcar storage. Hopefully the new rail user will be made public soon. Railcar storage was a source of revenue for the Pioneer Industrial Railway because they had room to park about 40-50 cars on various sidings, otherwise unused – the Journal Star spur, the Peoria Heights Runaround and various spurs at Pioneer Industrial Park.