Tracks on 10th

Will consolidating three rail lines divide the city or bring it together?

RAIL | Patrick Yeagle

The bright red bricks of the boxy building at 427 S. 12th St. in Springfield stand out boldly against the drab colors of winter. A remnant of Springfield’s past, the building incorporates windows, doors and other materials from the house that eventually became the Dana-Thomas House. It had a 100-year-old time capsule in its cornerstone, opened in 2006, containing a Bible, a penny and a note that is so fragile from age that it can’t be opened. Beginning in 1896 and rebuilt in 1904, the Lincoln Colored Home served Springfield as the nation’s first orphanage for African American children. But it now sits empty in disrepair, a target for vandals and an enormous challenge for the Springfield family seeking to restore it.

“The Lincoln Colored Home really represents a community effort, when people came together for a cause,” says Lee Hubbard of Springfield, whose family arrived in Springfield in a wagon train around the same time as Abraham Lincoln and was even once represented by Lincoln in a legal matter. Lee Hubbard’s

father, Lyman Hubbard, owns the Lincoln Colored Home and has a vision to turn the historic structure into a museum and an anchor for the city’s east side. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, sits two blocks from a possible railroad expansion that could put all of Springfield’s rail traffic down the 10th Street rail corridor. Lee Hubbard says that would be a blessing rather than a curse.

“I don’t see the 10th Street corridor as being a dividing wall,” he says. “That wall has already existed. It can’t make things worse; our home values haven’t changed in 50 or 60 years. If anything, I think this can be a positive adjunct to all that.”

Hubbard, a resident of the east side, hopes that consolidation of the city’s three railways along 10th Street will bring redevelopment money to the east side, which could help his family restore the Lincoln Colored Home.

“You’re not going to grow unless you’re bringing people in and out,” he says.

The consolidation on 10th Street is one of three main alternatives proposed by the Springfield Rail Corridor Study, which is examining how Springfield can accommodate a projected doubling in rail activity through the city by 2020. Alternatives include double-tracking the Third Street rail corridor, moving Third Street rails to 10th Street (partial consolidation), and combining Third Street and 19th Street tracks on 10th Street (full consolidation) for a total of five tracks. The extensive study, led by Hanson Professional Services, Inc., of Springfield, created preliminary analyses of each alternative’s costs, benefits and impacts and has released that information seeking public comment. While the idea of combining the city’s three rail lines into one has been tossed around for decades, the prospect of an increase in rail freight traffic and a highspeed rail project connecting Chicago and St.

Louis through Springfield could transform consolidation from a dream to a reality.

The options

The study group is considering two “full con solidation”

options, both of which call for widening the 10th Street rail corridor to five tracks and doubling the present 70-foot rightof-way to 140 feet. The first full consolidation option, known as Alternative 3A, would include new road underpasses at Ash, Madison, Jefferson and Carpenter streets, as well as North Grand Avenue. This option also calls for closing existing 10th Street rail crossings at Miller, Jackson, Reynolds and Enterprise streets.

Alternative 3B is a more intensive and expensive version of 3A, including more underpasses and closed crossings. This alternative would include the same new underpasses as Alternative 3A and add additional underpasses at Laurel, Monroe, Adams and Washington streets. In addition to the closed rail crossings identified in Alternative 3A, the second consolidation option would also close crossings at Capitol Avenue and Enos Street. Both alternatives would include “quiet zones” in which no train horns would be blown from Stanford Avenue in the south to Sangamon Avenue in the north.