Congressman Raja Speaks Out Against Railroad Merger that Would Drastically Increase Local Traffic and Metra Delays

Congressman Raja is working with local lawmakers to file an objection to Canadian Pacific Railway’s plan to merge with the Kansas City Southern railroad. If approved, the merger would increase daily CP traffic from three to 11 trains on average in the suburbs he represents, while Metra estimates that train delays would increase by 1200%.

“(The railroads) have got to significantly do a rethink on this, because it’ll just be explosive if they don’t,” Congressman Raja told the Daily Herald last week. “The state of discussions does not seem to be moving productively forward because of the way in which the railroad is addressing the situation. They’re huge entities, and their perception is regulatory authorities in Washington, D.C., are going to do their bidding. They need to rethink their assumptions.”