Sep. 13—OTTUMWA — Wapello County Engineer Jeff Skalberg voiced skepticism of the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger during Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting, and encouraged the supervisors to take the same stance.
Skalberg said he sat in on a meeting with CP officials regarding an environmental study the railroads have published, with the study being one of the final hurdles before the merger can be approved, which is expected to occur in the first quarter of next year.
The engineer said the math CP provides doesn't add up. The proposed CPKC merger would connect Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, becoming the first railroad to do so.
"They have said there would be less of a delay, but that they're increasing the delay of about 7.3 seconds per car," he said. "There are 3,800 cars that go over the Quincy Avenue crossing." If approved, the merger would gradually add over 14 trains per day on the CP line through Ottumwa.
On a similar note, Skalberg was on hand for a meeting with City of Ottumwa officials to discuss whether an overpass could be built on Quincy over the CP tracks. If it is determined a feasibility study could be conducted, it would cost about $60,000. Both the city and county share ownership of the crossing.
He did say the potential for moving on "phase one" of a feasibility study is possible. He said the county will move forward, but that it will be up to the city if it is to follow suit.
"Basically, the first phase is broad strokes, identifying all of our potential barriers and hurdles," he said. "It's identifying our major cost estimates. It's more budgetary analysis instead of fine-tuning.
"I don't see that they're (the city) not going to do it, but it's something the people at the table didn't want to act alone on."
However, Skalberg was not happy with the railroad officials during the meeting he had. He said many infrastructure improvements, or "mitigations," need to be made — specifically replacement of the 120th Street bridge over the track off Rutledge Road, which is in disrepair but is owned by the railroad, traffic delays with the BNSF Railway intersection, as well as signaling at more crossings in the county.
"They did a pretty broad stroke, saying that it wasn't going to be much of an issue for us," he said. "However, I feel differently, and I made those opinions known. I don't think we would be in favor of this merger without more benefits coming back to us that the federal government could impose upon them to make our lives a little bit easier.