SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Department of Transportation has announced a $10.1 million project to improve rail operations in Mitchell, Ill., northeast of St. Louis.
The project will reconfigure rail lines and replace a 97-year-old interlocking tower, with funding from six sources: $5.1 million from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvments (CRISI) program; $2 million from Union Pacific; $1.3 from IDOT; $1 million from Amtrak; $440,000 from BNSF Railway, and $300,000 from Kansas City Southern.
“Metro East [the area including Illinois suburbs of St. Louis] is one of the country’s critical freight and travel hubs. These improvements will improve quality of life and make the area an even more attractive location for business activity for years to come,” Illinois Transportation Secretary Omer Osman said in a press release. “We are especially proud of the teamwork between IDOT, the FRA and our rail partners to find a solution that positively impacts multiple modes of transportation.”
The project near Mitchell, Ill., northeast of St. Louis, will streamline an area where four lines intersect and sees up to 35 trains daily, reducing freight delays and decreating travel time for passenger trains. It is scheduled to begin next week and should be completed this fall. It will continue work that began earlier this year when UP’s Lenox Tower was torn down [see “News photos: UP Lenox Tower demolished,” Trains News Wire, May 18, 2021] . Operations at the interlocking had been transferred from the tower to UP dispatchers in Omaha in 2018.
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