Good Village Board Meeting on TV tonight, Union Pacific is holding a discussion with residents.

How is it going?

it went pretty well! at least things (parked trains, blocked intersections, etc.) shouldnt get worse, and may actually improve over 3-5 years.
suggestion to the village...hang christmas lights on the new signal thingys.

howdy60137, were you there or watching on TV? Same meeting every ten years really, nothing has changed. Actually, it has, they've now added another engine to the back of the train for extra noise, fumes (and fuel efficiency) and staged it directly behind homes for added annoyance. Ten years, same problem, nothing has changed.

i love the train. i hear it chugging by right now. And johnny cash is singing in my head!

good morning,shrugged. yeah, i was there...but i have to say the operations guy (with the dark hair) was VERY pleasant, and the other guy was nowhere near as abrasive as in the past. actually, while i don't think things will get better in the short run, i feel optimistic that they won't get worse. and as always...our wonderful village president presided over a very reasonable discussion, and i think all the residents who wanted to be heard (AND ask questions..take a page from THAT, District 87!) were heard.
all in all...way better than i hoped. keeping fingers crossed..

I was there as well and agree, President Pfefferman did, as always, an excellent job of setting the tone. I wasn’t impressed at all with either guy, basically politicians, a lot of talk, empty promises and little if no specifics or timetables. I don't live near the tracks, but can empathize with those who do and spoke about it. We heard a lot about what is going to happen without any definitive analysis of its impact. In the end, improvements and all, this stretch of track is the ONLY staging area between Proviso and Rochelle, nothing they said last night is in the works to change that. While some of the plans may move trains through quicker and reduce staging times, the addition to engines on the backs of trains adds to the problem. I wish I were as optimistic as you are, crossing our fingers seems to be the only recourse.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shrugged,

I have to be a dick here and ask the question that no one seems to want to ask. So, I have lived here for 15+ years. I have noticed a bit of an increase in RR traffic in that time. While I agree that trains should not be allowed to stage in areas that their engines are a nuisance to homeowners, what else could we be complaining about? If I am not mistaken, those tracks have been there for 100+ years. Of course, anything else I say will be fairly obvious and offend someone, so i will stop.

It would be the same as yours truly getting angry if Glenbard West did something to improve their property. The school has been there since 1921...I have been there since 1994. One would think, if I was smart back then, that I would have had the foresight to understand that the building and/or grounds might change...regardless of whether I live in the neighborhood or not. If I didn't want to live next to a potentially changing structure, I should have moved to Montana. Or South Dakota.

Sort of like living in Arizona and complaining about Mexico.

It's only like living in Arizona and complaining about Mexico if someone has torn up your Arizona back yard and turned it into Mexico. As was stated several times at the meeting last night, we all bought homes next to train tracks and fully expected to see and hear trains. We did not buy homes next to a train YARD, however. Having a train chugging away outside your door for hours at a time is quite a different thing from having it zip on by. That is why, by the way, UP did it's environmental testing in Elmhurst (no idling trains) and not in Glen Ellyn (idling trains).

While I wouldn’t disagree with you JRB, and have often said the same myself regarding O’Hare and like complaints, most of the residents who spoke last night had a valid point. They all acknowledged they purchased their homes knowing they’d be listening to the trains whistle by, however, Union Pacific’s purchase years ago turned those active tracks into a parking lot. It is not a clear “they knew what they were getting into” as one would think. I went into the meeting with that attitude, only to leave with a different impression after hearing the impacted residents speak.

I have no problem complaining to the UPRR re: idling trains. I thought those goofs fixed that problem a few years back. They simply are not supposed to be parked in downtown GE. Yet yesterday, at 6:10 A.M., as I was walking to the train...there was a belching, gurgling, spitting engine idling right next to Memorial Park. And I know there are houses on the other side of the tracks. IIRC, those trains have been staging between GE on Lombard since I have lived here.

So, not seeing the meeting, I assume that was the gist of the complaints.

I agree with this JRB fella. Weren't the trains here first? I mean the train came through way back in the day and then people started to build by them and use them and prosper due to them. I am going to guess that the trains were here before 99% of the residents currently in GE came to town. If people don't like the noise of trains, don't like getting stopped by them, and don't like the sight of train type equipment in the middle of their town, why buy a house by all of the previous stated?

Trains are staged for a reason. Trains are a needed form of transporting supplies throughout the country. The more this country grows, the more trains will be needed, therefore causing more train traffic on outdated systems that are overloaded enough as it is. Where are they supposed to be staged, the next town over? Who cares about Lombard or Wheaton, I want my train town train free! Let Lombard bitch about train staging, we don't want it here! Oh by the way, we need more crossings so that we can get our SUV's around quicker. More crossings, more urban sprawl, less trains to be staged so they don't all run into eachother.

Well, OV, I do think there is an appropriate stretch to stick those idling engines where they won't disturb quite as many people, if any...and I am not certain why the don't do it 100% of the time. seems as though that would be a simple thing to do.

There may be many reasons why things have changed. Many factors go into place when trying to move tons of supplies around this country. Speed, safety, timing, scheduling changes from other users of the system, etc...

Say town A had a staging area and they said "no more," because town president has a child that doesn't sleep at night and needs nap time at 10 AM, right when the 10 O clock staged. Town B may have to pick up the slack. Then town B says no more, and then town C has to take more on. Say a new crossing in town B is constructed in a spot where SUV users demanded a crossing be built to access the mall faster, said crossing being right in the middle of a 1/4 stretch perfect for staging? Now what do you do? It is a continuously changing puzzle.

Say Metra needs to add 2 more runs, but one stop is on the opposite side of the other stations (Like when Oak Park pulled the "we want left hand exits off the Eisenhower, screw your right hand exits)? So now we have to switch over from a right side station across 2 lines to get to a left hand station because town C thought their station should be different? Well, we need to stop 2 freights going through while metra switches.

All I am saying is, the train companies are not doing this to piss off GE, they are doing this out of neccessity because of ever growing suburbs, ever changing traffic patterns, and ever expanding everything. Glen Ellyn was built because of the trains, and trains make noise, people should have realized this when buying in Glen Ellyn, Lombard, Wheaton and all the rest of the train towns along our wonderful commuting systems.

They are not doing it out of necessity but out of convenience, because they can, but that doesn't make it right. The reason...because there is no other area to stage a train on the entire West line between Rochelle and Chicago. Buying a home next to rail line is one thing, buying a home next to a rail yard is quite another. UP has turned a rail line into a yard because they want to, not because they have to.

I forgot about the new procedure about sticking an engine at the end of the train that they are using. That probably explains the engine at Memorial.

And I think it is those engines that are now causing noise and air quality issues/complaints. UP stated last night they look to increase that practice by 65 percent, which means, the problem will only get worse.

Now if they had Wi-Fi on the train, residents could send them a nasty gram.