Traffic Jam at the Nations Crossroads

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, Kelsey Gee, who retweeted it: @kelseykgee

When you're writing about Chicago and freight rail, it makes sense to start with Carl Sandburg. https://www.wsj.com/articles/traffic-jam-at-the-nations-crossroads-1493126761 via @WSJ

Link to tweet

Traffic Jam at the Nation’s Crossroads

Chicago coalition of local, state and regional entities has been working through a $4.4 billion plan to ease gridlock



[font size=1]Rail freight cars positioned in Hammond, Ind., waiting to cross the Calumet River into Chicago in February 2017. Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press [/font]

By Will Connors

April 25, 2017 9:26 a.m. ET

CHICAGO—This city’s most famous poet, Carl Sandburg, called Chicago the “nation’s freight handler.” That title stands true today. ... Every day, some 300,000 commuters on two dozen passenger train lines converge in Chicago, where they share limited real estate with six major railroad lines and 30,000 to 50,000 freight cars, or roughly 25% of the country’s freight rail traffic.

Chicago is the country’s No. 1 hub for freight traffic and No. 2 for commuter train lines—and its problems can bog down the whole system. Over the years, the city’s densely populated neighborhoods, grinding local politics and a host of infrastructure issues have kept trains from running on time. Road traffic and shared rail lines between commuter and freight systems have created the worst rail backlogs in the country. In 2003, it could take trains as long as 43 hours to crawl through Chicago, in some cases at five miles an hour.

That same year, city and state officials and railroad industry representatives undertook a $4.4 billion program called Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (or Create) to tackle rail congestion, point by point. Backers of the project estimate it will yield some $31.5 billion in economic benefits over the life of the project.

The program has grown to include 70 projects, 28 of them completed, including overpasses where passenger train and car traffic overlap, track upgrades and better coordination of shared tracks.
....

Write to Will Connors at [e-mail]

@wconnors

He said elsewhere at his Twitter account that April 18 was his last day at The Wall Street Journal.

[elleng]

1. Chicago Related Poem Content Details BY CARL SANDBURG

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.



(Thanks. Lived and thrived there for 10 years.)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. A Hog Can Cross the Country Without Changing Trains - But YOU Can't!

[elleng]

3. VERY cool!