Train Late? Blame Chicago

Not the greatest advertisment for traffic routed through Chicago - the railroad capital:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/us/ch ... untry.html

Brief passage:

• CHICAGO — When it comes to rail traffic, Chicago is America’s speed bump.
  
  Shippers complain that a load of freight can make its way from Los Angeles to Chicago in 48 hours, then take 30 hours to travel across the city. A recent trainload of sulfur took some 27 hours to pass through Chicago — an average speed of 1.13 miles per hour, or about a quarter the pace of many electric wheelchairs.
  
  With freight volume in the United States expected to grow by more than 80 percent in the next 20 years, delays are projected to only get worse.

This is nothing new, and within my memory of following railroad industry affairs, the "number" was as high as 96 hours. Sorry to say, with the railroad industry evolving into the "Final Four" (KCS will mate with someone soon), Chicago is only one of several gateways with which traffic can be interchanged between the two "East" roads and the two "West".

This article has also been noted by Mr. Doepack, and prior to origination of this topic, over at the Chicagoland Commuter Forum:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 5#p1043660