Last month, Norfolk Southern won Chicago City Council approval to move forward with construction on a massive, long-planned rail yard expansion near Englewood.
Two days later, a Norfolk Southern train went off the rails and erupted into flames near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Half of the nearby town had to evacuate for days as responders intentionally burned toxic chemicals in some of the derailed cars to prevent an uncontrolled explosion, leaving residents with lingering health concerns.
In the following weeks, the railroad had another derailment, this time involving no hazardous materials, and a workplace collision that left a conductor dead. Lawsuits were filed and the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Railroad Administration opened investigations into the company’s organization and safety culture.
None of the recent crashes or derailments took place in Chicago, and the company says it remains committed to the long-standing South Side plans, which have been in the works for 15 years and required acquiring hundreds of homes in the area. But the fallout could open the door to further pushback, observers said.
In Englewood, the plan was for years met with resistance from residents who sought, ultimately unsuccessfully, to halt the sale of blocks and blocks of homes to be bulldozed. More recently, as plans progressed, some have turned their attention to ensuring jobs and quality of life for community residents.
“Jobs, contracts and opportunities are the keywords,” said Englewood resident Bob Israel.
Norfolk Southern has for years been pursuing its $150 million plan to double the size of its intermodal freight yard at 47th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway, a crucial stop on the high-speed tracks that connect Chicago with the East Coast. The company has described the project as one that will “build upon Chicago’s role as the heart of our nation’s supply chain.”
The plans garnered support from politicians including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has defended the project as a means to help keep industrial jobs after decades of decline and has lauded Norfolk Southern’s efforts to engage area residents.
In February, aldermen approved a critical piece of the plan to transfer ownership of city streets and alleys to the railroad, after the 20th Ward’s current alderman, Jeanette Taylor, dropped her opposition to the plan, condemning Norfolk Southern but saying the community had decided to end its fight.
But the company’s recent string of high-profile derailments and crashes could open the door to further pushback, said industry analyst and consultant Anthony Hatch.
“If I were an opponent of an expansion of this yard, I would use that,” he said.
The scrutiny shouldn’t affect the expansion, he said. A bigger yard takes more trains off active tracks and allows more work to take place in a private space. It also means increased freight business which, though tough for those who live next to rail facilities, takes business off the nation’s roads, he said.
Taylor said Norfolk Southern’s recent derailments confirmed what she thought of the company.
“It makes me know that I was right about them,” she said. “They do not give a (expletive) about nobody but themselves and what their bottom line is.”
Her focus remains on air quality in the area and ensuring the communities around the rail yard are supported. She wants to make sure the company is held accountable for fixing the streets and infrastructure it will use, and that it conducts an annual study on the effects on neighbors of the railroad’s trains and trucks.
“All they did was help kill another Black community,” she said.
Israel, who said he’s been involved in efforts to oppose Norfolk Southern’s expansion for almost a decade, said the first problem with the expansion was the railroad’s acquisition of homes. But now that it’s happening, he wants to see construction contracts awarded to community businesses.
Norfolk Southern has directly hired 50 employees who live in ZIP codes in and around Englewood since 2014, a railroad official said at a community meeting in January.
As of January, 20 people were actively employed who live in seven South Side ZIP codes, Norfolk Southern spokesman Connor Spielmaker said in an email. That doesn’t include employees who might have moved out of the area since then, or contract jobs through vendors who operate the railroad’s facilities.
Norfolk Southern directly employs about 450 people across the Chicago area, he said.
The company has $85 million in construction contracts to award for the rail yard expansion. Company officials said in a letter to aldermen the railroad would exceed the city’s contracting targets, which call for 24% of construction contracts to go to minority-owned firms and 4% to companies owned by women.
To Israel, the key is making sure the contracts are awarded to Englewood residents, or at least to businesses on the South Side. For example, excavation is currently underway, he said.
“We got some local community residents that can move dirt,” he said.
Spielmaker said part of the company’s commitment to moving forward with the expansion includes “keeping promises we’ve made to that community.” As construction plans are finalized, Norfolk Southern hired a Chicago-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consulting firm called Trinal to help it make good on its commitment to working with local, diverse contractors, he said.
Asiaha Butler, CEO of R.A.G.E., the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, said community members have long distrusted Norfolk Southern since the company began acquiring property in the area. The recent derailments didn’t surprise her, because the company has never seemed to be a good corporate neighbor, she said.
“People still reminisce about the disrespect that they had from the corporation, and that they saw it was actually no investment as they were expanding for profitable reasons into our community,” she said. “None of those dollars, or jobs or opportunities, never really came to fruition here in Englewood.”
She hoped national scrutiny of Norfolk Southern would make them better actors in the neighborhood as they expand. And she vowed the community would watch the company closely.
The Associated Press contributed.
