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.
Who says these honyocks have to make sense?? They must have all be scared by big nasty trains when they were young, eh?
HONK!!!!!
CIRY was forced to accept the reality of economical rail service. They were likely to lose before the Surface Transportation Board, and they knew it. There have been signs for the past several months that CIRY was starting to get serious about running a railroad, rather than be a lackey for the COP.
I can’t wait to read the next JSEB rant about how unfair this new development is.
Thanks, I noticed them sprucing up the tracks lately and wondered what was up.
There are glorified sidewalks on Pioneer Parkway? Really? Wow – that’s forward thinking to put sidewalks on autorow.
What the trail and park district has not come to understand is that the city of Peoria is not the one that makes decisions about who runs the railroad. The STB does and has been licensed to do so since 1920. The entire issue before the STB currently is NOT whether it will be rail or trail but which railroad will operate the Kellar Branch. There is nothing before the STB on a trail. Those who want the trail need to open up and work WITH the railroad and get the trail side by side. No local government entity has the power to change the running of the railroad and its time they woke up to this fact. Horns are going to blow and trains are going to run and anyone who bought a new house and was told by their realtor that the tracks were going to be a trail soon should go back and sue the realtor for lying to them. We can share the right of way and need to look at it in this light to benefit ALL. Stop the ME, ME, ME attitude. Cooperate and benefit all.
Pioneer Railcorp offered in public to assist the trail with in-kind services to assist in building the trail if they were running the Kellar Branch. They were dismissed out of hand. CIRY has now offered to let the trail run alongside but offered no assistance and cautioned that the trail must not interfere with the railroad in any way. But no railroad is required to allow the trail in any way shape or form. So while CIRY is being generous to say it will allow it the trail group needs to jump on it and accept before the offer is withdrawn and they end up with zero.
There is no trail or rail so get that through your head.
George, George, George you are a silly old dingdong. You and your fellow trail knuckleheads should have embraced the PIRY plan to operate a trail next to the rails. Now you might end up with NOTHING!!! When you try to figure out what went wrong – just look in the mirror and cry.
The eco-tree-huggers will be crying to the Journal Star now, and likely get a sympathetic ear. Those folks might want to change those green signs on their cars about the trail, so it does not identify them to others in traffic.
I’m an eco-tree-hugger and I want to see the rail kept with the trail running along side it. Economically, Peoria needs to keep the rail for future development. As a public service, I think the trail would be brilliant, same for connecting the Rock Island and Pimetoui trails, that’s a cool thing.
Has anyone ever tried to sue the parks district for obstructing commerce/legal proceedings/justice? Take them to court, that might be the way to finally get them off their soapbox.