Below is the text of the latest letter from Pioneer Railcorp to the Mayor and council members regarding the Kellar Branch. They’ve raised their $565,000 offer to $750,000. Tomorrow night, the city will decide if they want to pursue this three-quarters-of-a-million-dollars offer or continue paying legal fees out the nose for the benefit of the park district. It’s not like the city needs the money or anything.
February 16, 2007
Dear Council Member ——-:
Thank you for allowing me to speak at your meeting Tuesday night. I am writing to encourage you to support the selection of our Company to provide competitive rail service to the Peoria area, via the Keller Branch, and to reaffirm our commitment to share the railroad right of way with a trail, and work to develop a trolley/commuter service on the line to help local business and tourism.
Our sister Company Keokuk Junction Railway Co. is willing to purchase the Kellar Branch/â€western connection†for $750,000. This is our last, best and final offer. I am confident that this offer is more than generous, especially since it is likely the City has already received a significant payback of its original investment from previous surcharges that were collected. Putting the Kellar Branch back in private hands will put it back on the tax rolls, allow us to make necessary investments in the track, and obviate the worsening weed/brush situation, which CIRY refuses to address.
Selling the railroad to our Company would facilitate the quickest and easiest means to build a trail, and will once and for all put an end to a problem that has festered for over 10 years. Please consider the fact that it is an unanswered question as to how much of the underlying real estate is actually owned by the City, if any. Aside from the rail issues, construction of a trail could be significantly delayed if it turns out that the property reverts to the adjoining landowners, if the Keller Branch were to be removed. This would not be an issue if the railroad remains intact. I am confident that a way to fund the construction of the trail will be found, once the decision has been made to keep the Keller Branch intact, just as it was for the trail between East Peoria and Morton along Highway 150. As I mentioned Tuesday, shared right of ways are being used all over the country and I would like to point out that the City already has a trail on railroad right of way along the downtown riverfront! Resolving this issue once and for all would allow the City to turn its attention to more pressing issues, such as reducing crime and increasing economic development. To date the City has wasted in excess of $100,000 of taxpayer money on legal fees alone on this issue, not to mention untold hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff and council time. Without immediate closure, this problem will be ongoing for many more years.
In regard to comments made concerning the importance of a rail carrier having a good relationship with the Union Pacific, please be assured that Pioneer Railcorp subsidiaries perform millions of dollars of business with the Union Pacific Railroad, all over the country, including handling 10,000 cars a year for the Union Pacific in Fort Smith, Arkansas and delivering 1 million tons of coal from the Union Pacific in Central Illinois. Of course, none of this would be possible if we were not able to work with the Union Pacific, as some have falsely claimed.
We have been the only company able to operate the Keller Branch at a profit, and anticipate significant growth in usage of the Keller Branch in the coming years. In addition, both current users of the line, including O’Brien Steel, have told the Council our Company provides excellent service. CRY has never provided reliable or dependable service to Carver Lumber, and I have concerns that CRY employees are not actually performing railroad services for O’Brien Steel, and instead believe the handling of O’Brien Steel rail traffic is being performed by O’Brien employees directly. If this is accurate, it is a potential liability exposure the City cannot afford to have. Mr. O’Brien’s company, contrary to the information he presented the Council, has historically been a moderate user of the Keller Branch. Please see the table below:
O’Brien Steel Rail Usage
Year Railcars 1998 95 1999 30 2000 76 2001 66 2002 74 2003 81 2004 116 2005 82 Total 620 In addition, it is my understanding that O’Brien received at least 45 cars in 2006. I think it is a safe assumption to make that O’Brien Steel would not have used rail it was not the most cost effective way to receive its product.
Thank you for your consideration of my request. Please be assured we want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. If you have any questions you would like answered please contact me anytime at […].
Respectfully,
J. Michael Carr
CEO and President
By the way, do you think rail and trail can’t coexist? Well, it does in South Elgin, Illinois. I guess they’re just more creative than we are here in Peoria:
CJ: I’m coming late to this issue, but I have a question about the letter from Mr. Carr, who states: “Aside from the rail issues, construction of a trail could be significantly delayed if it turns out that the property reverts to the adjoining landowners, if the Keller Branch were to be removed.”
Ownership of the property in question is a serious concern. Does anyone know the answer to this – if the Kellar Branch is removed, does ownership of the property revert to the adjoining land owners? Is it on an easement or what? How can the City Council proceed – one way or the other – without having researched ownership?
Notice the caption to the picture folks, rail and trail “partners in education and recreation”
If Mr. Carr has not sent this letter please inform him he misspelled “Kellar” as “Keller” numerous times. I could see rail opponents seizing on these errors and making bogus claims of ignorance on Pioneer’s part.
PrairieCelt, to be honest, I don’t know the answer to that one. I do know that generally-speaking, railroads are often built on an easement; i.e., the rail companies don’t own the land on which the railroad is built. Thus, when a railroad is abandoned, the land reverts to the adjacent property-owners.
I’ve asked a couple members of the council about it, and they believe that in the case of the Kellar Branch, this was not an easement and the city actually purchased and now owns the land as well as the rail line.
The strange thing about that, though, is that they consistently speak of wanting to “railbank” the Kellar Branch. Generally, you only need to railbank a corridor to prevent the land from reverting to adjacent property owners. So, I’m not sure why they feel the need to railbank if they have clear title to the land.
I think this uncertainty over ownership is precisely what Pioneer is referring to in their letter. I’m guessing there’s some sort of legal question that would arise if/when they started to tear up the rail line.
Returned to Peoria, there is some dispute over the proper spelling of Kellar/Keller. Based on current legal documents, period maps, and many other sources, a case can be made for spelling it either way. For instance, I have a county atlas from the late 1800s that has it spelled “Keller.” Sharon Deckard has documents from the same time period that has it spelled “Kellar.”
Thank you, C.J. But wouldn’t a call or visit to the Recorder of Deeds Office clear this up for the City (deeds and easements are usually recorded)? Certainly they have someone who could make the call.
If my memory is not too faulty, I seem to remember a similar problem when the Rock Island Trail was put in – it seems like Betty Menold (hope I have the right party) wanted the land adjacent to her property to revert to her. Obviously this was cleared up but can’t remember how.
I am pretty excited about the rail/trail option. But, the cynic within tells me that the city won’t sell the rail on some point of ridiculous principle.
Khazzam said last week he might not complete the next $45 million investment in Junction City if trains were going by? That will make it tough for the city to vote for a rail/trail option if he sticks to that.
The track was named after the Rev. Isaac Kellar and so was the station out on Knoxville when it was there. That is where the spelling for the Kellar Branch comes from. He was a minister for the Presbyterian Churc here in Peoria on Fulton St. You can goggle the name Isaac Kellar and get the whole story. It is also in the 1873 Peoria Atlas. I take my spelling from that report. If someone has another one that rejects it I have not seen it. I don’t think it really matters much. I’ve seen the Journal Star misspell it and also the city council misspell it on the agenda recently.
Sharon’s correct about the origin of the name. The railroad chose to spell (mispell?) the name Keller on their timetables and signage. Since the line was removed north of Alta in 1965 and became a branchline, the local spelling probably gained prominance. Just a theory mind you.
The same situation seems to exist with the Chicago & North Western’s “Radnor” Station, located just north of Willow Knolls Road. The road name is spelled “Radner.”
Khazzam is stating what Uncle Ray and Sweet Bonnie want to hear. He’s a businessman. If the trains come through, along with a streetcar which would bring customers to Junction City, he’ll meet it standing on his hands.
Wow! Check out the trail further on down the line regarding the Fox Valley thing, and… and… oh no.
Guess there is no trail there. Looks like there’s a baby spur where the bikers whiz by, then disappear to the right in the photo…
And, this second photo of the Fox Valley Line shows a bit DIFFERENT of berth width than what the Kellar has… and a bit DIFFERENT view for all, and yet no trail…
Hmmmmmm… maybe they already have park land in place near Elgin, and sort of thought it might be a waste of money to build a track along 3.5 miles of trolley only track. Just maybe.
http://www.foxtrolley.org/index.html
Guess what? In today’s PJStar there is yet another one of the infamous editorial boards rants about the trail and you can also geuess that they didn’t print the facts, again.
To C.J., Sharon, and David: Thanks for the history and theories behind Kellar/Keller. I had never seen “Keller” before Mr. Carr’s letter so it stuck out.
MDD: I might design a Word macro for the JSEB so they can crank out their Kellar editorials with greater ease. Simply run the macro and alter a couple of words for each editorial.
As for Khazzam I recall him being somewhat open-minded in recent comments about Kellar on this blog. Maybe it’s not too late to save him from the dark side. Any additional heavy hitter pro-rail or rail/trail advocates would help.