North Cook News

During its Feb. 27 meeting, the Barrington Village Board of Trustees discussed an upcoming railroad merger.

Village President Karen Darch addressed both the recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the proposed merger between Union Pacific and Canadian National. The $31 billion merger is currently awaiting approval from the Surface Transportation Board, although many communities and representatives are urging the body to deny it. The U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division has also acknowledged the possibility that the merger could reduce competition in the railroad industry.

Barrington currently has Canadian National railways cutting through it that exclusively support freight cars with various substances and cargo. Darch assured residents that all of their first responders are trained in both hazardous materials and disaster responses, and that Village officials are aware of the risk of a dangerous derailment. She also said that she has trust in the relationship between the railroads and hazmat teams and promised that any recommendations for railroad safety following the East Palestine derailment would be taken up and enacted in Barrington to ensure resident safety.

"Be assured that we do think about that all the time and do our best to be prepared and plan for it," Darch said in the meeting. "We ask for cell phone or email information, particularly cell phone information from our residents to be able to contact you or for various reasons. This is one of those reasons. If there were an evacuation need, one of the fastest ways to contact everyone is a reverse 911-type call. So if you haven't given your cell phone information into our village system, I would suggest that people do go on the website... and give us your contact information, which would be very important in an event such as this.

"I was on a phone call that the White House put on for elected officials last week, which was a briefing, a pretty quick briefing on that incident in Ohio, and talking about the various roles the agencies were playing and what they were looking at. And again, that just adds to our wealth of information. And the information that ultimately comes out is helpful to communities and to the regulators, to the railroads, and to the tanker owners to make changes."