[ardecila]

^ Good news.

It's too bad that Lake Forest and Glenview are raising such a stink about the freight sidings on Illinois' side of the Hiawatha corridor, but hopefully that leads the state to push for a more expensive alternative that moves all of CP's freight trains onto UP's New Line. It would completely remove freight from Metra's territory in the MD-N corridor, onto a railroad that was purposely built by C&NW as a freight bypass of the North Shore and is now underutilized. UP is even in favor of this idea, since they would get a free second track from the state of Illinois plus trackage rights fees from CP that currently flow to Metra.