How Illinois’ Rail Network Quietly Powers the U.S. Economy
Stand on an overpass on Chicago’s South Side long enough and you begin to understand something most Americans rarely consider: the United States runs on steel rails. Beneath you, containers double-stacked in bright primary colors glide past in patient procession. Grain hoppers rumble east from the Plains. Tank cars carrying chemicals from Gulf refineries clatter north. Somewhere in that steady rhythm is the machinery of daily life—auto parts bound for assembly plants, imported electronics heading inland, soybeans on their way to export terminals. Illinois, and Chicago in particular, is the spinal column of that system. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s freight rail traffic passes through the region. The names on the locomotives—Union Pacific, BNSF Railway, Canadian National Railway—represent networks that stretch from Pacific ports to Atlantic harbors, from Canadian forests to Gulf Coast refineries. But their lines converge here, in a dense and aging web of track that makes...