Although CSX has not confirmed specific plans for the site, the railroad owns the property, which has been the focus of widely reported public forums, some of which have drawn opposition from nearby residents.
“There is substantial support among local, state, and regional officials for the (Crete) concept,” says CSX representative Rob Doolittle. “Locating a facility there would enhance the region’s ability to manage the growing volume of intermodal freight moving to and from the Chicago region.”
The 1,100-acre site is on the south edge of Crete, along the western perimeter of the railroad and just a half-mile from the Illinois state Route 394/state Route 1 development corridor often called the Southland Parkway. The parkway is a busy truck artery that extends south 20 miles into Will County from Interstate 80. In recent years, the county has seen explosive growth in warehousing and distribution businesses.
Historically, the Crete property has been used for farming. However, CenterPoint, an industrial development firm, purchased the site in 2007 after it was annexed by the village of Crete and rezoned as “intermodal terminal,” or IT. CenterPoint began a marketing campaign but by 2012 abandoned its plan and put the property back up for sale. A local developer later bought the land and sold it to CSX in June 2016.
The site has a strategic location, only five miles north of where state routes 394 and 1 would intersect with the proposed Interstate 394 Illiana Expressway, an east-west link between Interstate 65 near Crown Point, Ind., and Interstate 55 at Wilmington, Ill. It is also adjacent to the location of the proposed and long-embattled South Suburban Airport.
Local residents’ objections to the project have centered on plans to build a railroad overpass for Crete-Monee Road, the major east-east thoroughfare at the north end of the site. Public hearings in January drew crowds of opponents, and anti-intermodal signs have begun appearing along roadsides. But the opposition comes mostly from township residents, and the project site is entirely contained within the village of Crete.
“If CSX were to move forward with a project in Crete, we would commit to working with local officials and community leaders to provide information and address questions that nearby residents might have,” Doolittle says. “CSX strives to be a good neighbor in every project we develop, and we would approach this project in the same way.”
The railroad through Crete is the former north-south main line of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, now shared by UP and CSX south 52 miles to Woodland Junction, where UP diverges to the southwest for St. Louis and CSX to the southeast for Evansville, Nashville, and beyond.
Crete would be the fourth major regional intermodal terminal and logistics park built in the Chicago area within the last 20 years. Others include BNSF’s Logistics Park Chicago in Elwood, a southwest suburb; UP’s Global Three in Rochelle; and UP’s Global Four in Joliet.
The Crete project would be a major step for CSX and traffic on its Southeastern Corridor. It would be the first Chicago-area intermodal park tied directly to the port of Miami, Fla., and its trade with Latin America, the Caribbean, and presumably the expanded Panama Canal.
Crete also would provide CSX a leg up on its traditional rival Norfolk Southern, whose key intermodal ramps are the cramped facilities at Englewood on the city’s southeast side, and Landers Yard to the southwest.
Robinson Foster, The Meridian Speedway is a partnership of Kansas City Southern, not Union Pacific , with Norfolk Southern.
Mr. Giblin, unfortunately, my response to you had to be edited by the Trains staff to … “@#$^!@#$$$^#$^!#!@ you, you pretentious @#$^!@#$^&!#&&#^@#$!” If you talk to actual people the way you did in that post, I’m surprised anyone listens.
Next time, why don’t you read all of the words I wrote, including those that thought about a different approach.
Per Larry Gross, overall intermodal market share, using double stack containers and trailers, across all commodities and products, distances, and equipment, is about 2%. These approximate 14 million annual shipments are an impressive tip of the iceberg. 98% of the market goes unserved!
RAIL Solution advocates for a new public-private partnership with the railroad industry. It is taking shape thanks to the Nevada DOT and the University of Nevada Las Vegas, please see their:
Phase I findings:
faculty.unlv.edu/tnmc/LandFerry/files/research/Research.php
Phase II Draft Scope of Work:
faculty.unlv.edu/tnmc/LandFerry2/files/research/Proposals.php
Support letters that the Nevada DOT fund the Phase II Economic and Engineering Assessment:
faculty.unlv.edu/tnmc/LandFerry2/files/research/Research.php
New capital must be generated to invest in Steel Interstate railway improvements to relieve the most congested highway corridors. These capital improvements will accommodate Land Ferry service. These same capital improvements to the railways will leverage the effectiveness and efficiency of conventional unit, manifest, and (double stack container and trailer) intermodal railway services. The Steel Interstate improvement adds the railway capacity for short-, medium, and long-haul railway freight and passenger services to co-exist.
In Phase II we will closely assess how Steel Interstate improvements will allow the invisible hand of the market, (“The unobservable market force that helps the demand and supply of (services) in a free market to reach equilibrium automatically.” http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/invisible-hand), to mange the growth of revenue, volume, and net income, and lower the operating ratio for railway and highway services alike.
While the CSX intermodal terminal proposed for Crete, Ill., may be a shrewd tactical move, using Steel Interstate improvements to generate more railway volume and more direct trains to simply route around Chicago, via St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans would be a shrewd strategic move to both relieve Chicago and grow the economy by taking cost out of logistics. For example, with the exception of the Union Pacific Railroad and Norfolk Southern Railway joint service on the Meridian Speedway, all intermodal traffic between Northern and Southern California, and Florida, routes via Chicago. This adds significant cost in mileage, time, interchange, and highway and railway congestion in Chicago. For beneficial commodity owners who are the ultimate customers, it adds significant inventory holding cost which time and again tips their service decision to highway services, with its 98% market share over conventional railway intermodal services.
With regional Steel Interstate Corridors, for example Sacramento to Salt Lake City in the Phase II Draft Scope of Work, the the break even distance for new, unserved, short- and medium-haul routes improves. For example, the new Tesla Gigafactory in the Reno, Nev., area is planned to generate 80,000 new annual truckloads of batteries, many consigned to their Fremont, Calif., vehicle assembly plant. Phase II will assess a Steel Interstate improvement of Donner Pass by offering the customer a choice of Land Ferry, the fastest, or short-haul conventional intermodal or carload, respectively slower, railway services to relieve I-80 of that traffic.
There are, in addition to Tesla, many beneficial commodity owners with significant highway traffic in the Reno area. By 2040, I-80 between Sacramento and Salt Lake City is forecast to approach 8,500 commercial vehicles per day, per mile. From Major Truck Routes on the NHS: 2011 and 2040, FHWA Freight Facts and Figures 2013, (www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/docs/13factsfigures/index.htm), “The number of National Highway System miles carrying large volumes and high percentages of trucks is forecast to increase dramatically by 2040. Segments with more than 8,500 trucks per day and where at least every fourth vehicle is a truck are forecast to reach 42,000 miles, an increase of more than 175 percent from 2011.”
In another short-haul example, the Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway originate and terminate their intermodal trains in Marion, Ark., and Memphis, Tenn., respectively. All domestic and intermodal containers and trailers serving the Nashville market route over 200 miles on I-40, hurting the economics of intermodal. A short-haul intermodal service to serve this 200-mile gap in the intermodal network can save highway drivers that work, making them more productive when making pickups and deliveries from a Nashville intermodal terminal, leveraging the local and regional economy there.
Without Steel Interstate capital improvement of capacity and velocity, and innovation of services, forecast growth will go highway. Private capital markets alone cannot finance the 50-year Steel Interstate improvements needed to achieve the required service goals. Again, a new public-private partnership with the railroad industry is needed.
And if Phase II finds Steel Interstate a positive, and it progresses to prototype implementation, then we will generate a significant number of short-term design, production and construction, and long-term maintenance and operations jobs badly needed to lift the American lower and middle classes to better income levels.
Let’s dig into that 98% highway market share!
Best Regards,
Robinson Foster, Development Director
RAIL Solution – Steel Interstate
railsolution.org steelinterstate.org
faculty.unlv.edu/tnmc/LandFerry2/Contact.php
Mr. Steenwyk, here’s your REALITY CHECK. Like or not, you are the reason this all works the way it does my friend. Transportation is a DERIVED DEMAND industry, as is logistics and warehousing also to some degree. The current supply chain you describe exists because YOU the customer and end user have DEMANDED it work that way.
Freight transportation is a game heavily dependent on economics of scale. That is we now have 53 ft. instead of 35 ft. trailers, and intermodal trains that are 12,000 feet, not 5,000 feet long. Once upon a time some of us can remember when we had single-level intermodal trains instead of doublestacks.
Your problem here is not with the nation’s supply chain network, your problem here is with the person you see in the mirror. As Pogo so famously said, “we have met the enemy and they are us”. You as a U.S. consumer enjoy the most efficient supply chain network anywhere in the world today, as well as the low costs of operation that goes with it.
If you and your friends and family are prepared to pay more we as supply chain professionals will be happy to design and operate whatever kind of delivery network you would like. But please remember there are no more free lunches left.
This yard would be a great thing for CSX to move out of the cramp Chicago area. If anyone spends any amount of time on I-94 or I-80 inbetween the rush hours will see nothing but trucks.
Why do all the solutions to Chicago’s rail problems involve concrete, rubber and former farmland/greenspace? I realize that all those boxes have a warehouse to go to and strategically locating the same with rail service is good from one perspective, but sure creates a miserable traffic situation for the rest of the region. Those in Crete may be happy if they win their one overpass concession, but we’re all poorer in the end. Taking a cue from the speech on 20 Jan, how about turning those “shuttered factories” along the existing close-in rail lines (or restoring lost corridors, like 40th St) into a more linear warehouse operation closer to the consumers? Ok, sure, a large part of the consumption occurs in big-box stores in that same former farmland, but what’s to say an intermodal train can’t operate in two sections or make a pickups/setouts at outlying terminals in addition to serving others…distribute the distribution. Railroads alone can’t do this, but an entity as large as CenterPoint sure could take a new approach, provided a entity of the people and for the people imposed the proper motivation on them. Such a transformation could “reduce the carnage” of all stripes all across Chicago-land.
All four Norfolk Southern Chicago area intermodal terminals are landlocked facilities located within the boundaries of the City of Chicago. All four are plagued with terrible local road access hampered in large measure by heavy city traffic and overhead viaducts constructed more than a century ago. The “newly expanded” NS 47th Street terminal depends on the infamous Dan Ryan Expressway for its primary access and egress.
At least two of the NS terminals are located in some of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The Landers facility is better in that the Ashburn community area it is located in is tied for 32nd place out of Chicago’s 73 community areas for most gun-related violence in December 2016.
The local drayage rates from the NS terminals to Will County warehouses are about twice what the new Crete facility will probably cost.
When EHH takes over, he will sell that CSX real estate in Crete and will add that money to his golden parachute and dividends. He will find a way to make up the millions he left behind at CP.
NS also has 47th St. ramp just to north of Englewood. Former PRR Truc-train site. Englewood has been recently expanded, too.