Here’s part of an e-mail that was forwarded to me today, apparently written by Recreational Trail Advocates leader George Burrier:

We have reached a crisis situation in our trail development that requires your help now! Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) is proceeding to rehabilitate the Kellar Branch by replacing rails and ties. It expects to be operating over the line by November according to a statement made by the foreman of the work crew. The Peoria City legal department states that it has no power to prevent this work from continuing. Please write or call Mayor Jim Ardis and your council member to ask for an explanation of why this is happening and what action Peoria intends to take to prevent the Kellar Branch from being used for rail traffic, why there is no operating agreement and why Peoria is not receiving rent for using the right-of-way. […]

The Peoria Park District has already made a formal presentation showing how a shared right-of-way is not physically practical and financially exceeds the current funding available.

This is hysterical. The trail advocates all marched down to the council meeting on February 20 and demanded that the council support Central Illinois Railroad so the city could “keep their trail options open.” Now they’re shocked — shocked, I say — that a railroad company would want to, oh I don’t know, run a railroad on that line. Gee, who’da thunk?

Now I guess they want the city to kick Central Illinois Railroad off the tracks as well. I mean, what other option is there? The legal department has already said that the city can’t do anything to stop them from running trains on that line. But the Trail Advocates are already on record supporting Central Illinois Railroad! Ha ha ha!

What the trail advocates fail to understand is that the rail carrier has a legal obligation to provide rail service over that line. There are shippers who want to use the line, and there is no pending request for discontinuance of the line (and hasn’t been for almost a year now). So what the trail advocates are essentially asking the city to do is conspire to keep Central Illinois Railroad from following the law.

Open your eyes, trail advocates. The railroad isn’t standing in the way of your trail. The Park District is standing in your way. While it may be physically impractical to share certain parts of the railroad right-of-way, that’s not true of the whole stretch. And those parts that are physically impractical can be worked around by putting that portion of the trail on-street or using one of those glorified sidewalks like they’ve already installed along Pioneer Parkway, University, and Sommer.

They can do it; they simply refuse. And instead, they’re wasting everyone’s time and a whole lot of taxpayer money fighting for the railroad right of way. How many more years are they going to keep fighting? How much more money will they waste? If they took all the money the city has paid in legal fees over the past 15 years and used it to build the trail instead, it would have been done years ago.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — the trail advocates have lost sight of their goal. If the goal is to get a trail, then they should give up trying to get the railroad abandoned and simply work around it. It will be quicker and cheaper. Instead, it appears that the trail is only a secondary goal — the primary goal is to get rid of the railroad line, and there’s no justification for that.

Back in February, former mayor Dick Carver came to Peoria (at taxpayer expense) to talk about options for the future of the Kellar Branch, including which railroad company would be the better rail carrier: Pioneer Industrial Railroad or Central Illinois Railroad Company. The president and general counsel for Pioneer showed up at the meetings, but no one from Central Illinois Rail bothered to make the trek down from Granville, Illinois. I also addressed the council at the time with what I thought was a well-reasoned argument in favor of the rail carrier who had provided better, safer service (Pioneer).

Nevertheless, the City chose Central Illinois Railroad, in no small part because of Dick Carver’s comments. One comment in particular (summarized below from the Feb. 13 council minutes) was especially swaying to the council:

Mr. Carver said he felt that Mr. John Darling, President of Central Illinois Rail Company, had a good relationship with the Union Pacific Railroad. He said Mr. Darling committed himself to making service more reliable, and more frequent, with a reasonable cost.

You see, without the Kellar Branch in operation, the western connection is only accessible from the Union Pacific line, so a good working relationship with UP (among other things) is essential if shippers on the western connection are ever going to get something close to a competitive rate.

John Darling, President of Central Illinois Rail, was the man of the hour that night, even though he wasn’t there at the meeting. Dick Carver talked him up, explained what a great working relationship the guy had with UP, etc. He wouldn’t come right out and say that Darling/CIRY was a better choice than Pioneer, but he might as well have. The implication was clear. So the council voted to get a contract with CIRY based on that recommendation and the promise of John Darling.

Fast-forward five months: The city is still unable to reach an agreement on a new contract with CIRY, and guess what? John Darling is no longer the president of Central Illinois Railroad. Randy Ray informed at least one councilman today, “Mr. Darling has left. Their new Chief Operating Officer is Jack Stolarczyk.”

Now that their pretense for choosing CIRY over Pioneer (Darling) is “lost and gone forever,” will they say “dreadful sorry, CIRY” and drop them in favor of Pioneer?

I think we all know the answer to that.

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.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Just a reminder to trail advocates: there is currently no petition pending before the Surface Transportation Board (STB) that would discontinue service on the Kellar Branch. Central Illinois Railroad withdrew that petition months ago and have never refiled. The only petition before the STB at this time is what’s called an “adverse discontinuance,” and the decision that’s handed down will determine whether Pioneer Industrial Railway or Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) is allowed to operate the line.

So, even if the ruling comes down in favor of CIRY, the city still can’t tear up the tracks and turn it into a trail. Furthermore, the City has been trying for several months to (according to the 2/20/07 council minutes) “negotiate with Central Illinois Railway for a modified certificate, which would allow Central Illinois Railway to operate on the Keller Branch for a limited period of time,” but has been unsuccessful so far. That doesn’t bode well for future cooperation on abandonment.

I hate to say I told you so, but, this really shouldn’t have come as any surprise. CIRY has never been a responsible corporate citizen, and there was no reason to believe they would be in the future. Nevertheless, that was the risk the council and trail advocates chose to take.

I would encourage everyone, whether pro-rail or pro-trail, to tell the City and the Park District to go to “Plan B” and stop wasting tax money fighting this thing. They can find an alternative route for building the trail, just like they did south of War Memorial (Class III trail), just like they did at Pioneer Park and Sommer (asphalt sidewalks), and just like they did north of Pioneer Parkway (trail next to the rail line). What is the end goal: to eliminate the Kellar Branch or to build a trail? I think the parties here are losing focus.

The city hired Central Illinois Railroad to provide rail service to Pioneer Park over the new $2-million western connection. But prices were so high over that connection that it was actually cheaper to truck materials than bring them in by rail, which is probably why the western spur (the portion of the rail line that has been there for decades before it was recently connected to the Kellar Branch) was never successful, but the Kellar Branch was.

However, the western connection has started being used again. Central Illinois Railroad (CIRY) recently lost a contract up in Elk Grove Village to operate trackage in Centex Industrial Park. So the speculation is that the tank cars CIRY had been storing up there are the ones they recently moved down here. David Jordan reported on this on his transportation blog here and here.

That prompted a most interesting discussion at the May 8 city council meeting. Here’s how it was recorded in the official minutes (emphasis added), interspersed with my comments:

Council Member Sandberg referred to the storage of rail cars on the Keller Branch Railroad and he questioned if Central Illinois Rail had an agreement with the City to store any rail cars on the Keller Branch.

Sandberg is referring to these cars, parked on the Kellar Branch by Chanute Road:

Corporation Counsel Randy Ray said the City did not have an agreement with Central Illinois Rail on the Keller Branch south of Pioneer Parkway. He said the City had an agreement from the west with D.O.T. that would give them trackage rights to serve from the west and from the west would include that area in Pioneer Park. He explained the agreement did not specifically allow for the storage of cars, but it did not prohibit the practice either. He said, it was his understanding, as long as the storage of cars did not interfere with service, the practice would be allowed.

It’s interesting that he mentioned the agreement the city has is with “D.O.T.” — actually it’s called “DOT Rail Services,” and that company no longer owns Central Illinois Railroad. They sold off CIRY to a newly formed entity called “Central Illinois Railroad Holdings, LLC.” So, there is some question over whether that agreement is still in effect, since Article 12 states that DOT cannot “transfer, assign or convey the rights granted hereunder without the written consent of the CITY and only upon the condition that the assignee shall abide by all terms, conditions and agreements hereof.”

But assuming the contract is still valid, Article 5.5 states clearly that, “The movement of engines, cars and trains of the DOT on said tracks shall be performed pursuant to federal, state and local government laws and regulations.” The City’s municipal code requires that hazardous materials be reported to the Fire Marshal, and depending on what materials are in the tank cars and how much material is in them, there may be permits or licenses that need to be purchased. None of that was done.

Corporation Counsel Ray said, much like the agreement with D.O.T.’s predecessor, the agreement was silent to specific storage. He said there were other regulations that prohibited storing large amounts of hazardous waste or materials, for example. In response to a question from Council Member Sandberg, he added Central Illinois Rail did not request permission from the City to store cars on the rail, nor did they provide advance notice.

Isn’t the Sierra Club and Peoria Families Against Toxic Waste strangely silent on this issue? I mean, the tank cars are right next to the trail. Why aren’t there any complaints about this hazard to public health and safety? I would think they’d be all over it.

City Manager Randy Oliver said an opinion from the rail attorney was received and he advised, if a car was passing through the City of Peoria, the City would not have the right to make an inspection. He stated if a rail car was stored on the track, the City would have the right to inspect the rail car. He said he would request Fire Chief Kent Tomblin and his team to make an inspection of the cars to determine what was being stored, if anything. He added a fee would be charged for the inspection, if it was provided for under an Ordinance and if the rail attorney determined a fee was chargeable.

In discussion with Council Member Nichting regarding if the City would be able to recover a viable amount based on the City’s investment in the rail due to the allowance of real estate law’s 12% rate of return, Corporation Counsel Randy Ray agreed and he said he would work on reaching an agreement that would provide such a return.

Following further discussion, Council Member Sandberg discussed safety issues and he said he agreed with Council Member Nichting’s comments.

Now we’re talking. Inspect the cars and charge any and all applicable fees. I wonder if there will be a report back on this item at tomorrow’s council meeting. I can’t wait to hear.

It’s a little galling that CIRY won’t provide service over the Kellar Branch (which is still active until the Surface Transportation Board says otherwise) and can’t provide competitive service over the western connection for our local Peoria business, but it can use the trackage for some out-of-town company’s hazardous materials storage. We, the taxpayers, did not build that $2-million western connection for this purpose.