CHICAGO, Ill. - Canadian National and Union Pacific announced Friday they would redirect some of their interchanged freight traffic away from the Chicago area, the world's third-busiest rail hub, in an effort to reduce congestion, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune and information from UP and CN.

The decision by the two railroads to divert some traffic away from Chicago could be the first of more moves to bypass North America's largest rail hub if the region's gridlocked system isn't overhauled. The CN-UP plan, to be phased in over a three-month period, is estimated to cut a cross-country shipment’s transit time in some instances by up to five days.

UP and CN will change interchange locations to effect the speed-up. Freight traffic moving between western Canada and Texas now will be consolidated and interchanged at Superior, Wis., instead of Chicago. Instead of moving through Wisconsin on CN’s former Wisconsin Central and interchanging to UP’s former Missouri Pacific, CN will hand off traffic to UP in Superior, and it will move south through Minneapolis and Kansas City. Freight from Wisconsin that would have previously moved south to Chicago on the former WC and interchanged to UP there, now will be sent west to interchange onto Union Pacific at St. Paul, Minn.

Traffic between Wisconsin and Arkansas and Texas will still move to Chicago on WC, but will be on a new run-through service that will interchange between CN’s Illinois Central and UP near Salem, in southern Illinois, rather than at Chicago.

Traffic moving between eastern Canada and the south-central United States will be interchanged from CN to UP at Memphis, Tenn., instead of Chicago. Furthermore, it will take a short-cut on CN itself, utilizing new trackage right on the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern between Griffith, Ind., on CN’s Grand Trunk Western from Ontario and Michigan, to CN’s Illinois Central at south suburban Matteson, Ill. Thus while CN gets less of a line-haul on traffic to be interchanged at Superior, it gets more of a line-haul on the traffic through Memphis.

CN said the overall traffic shift would allow it to divert about 14,000 to 15,000 freight carloads annually. The railroad emphasized that no jobs will be eliminated as a result.

While considered a small step, this is a move that has worried Chicago civic leaders for more than two years, reported the Tribune They have been trying to convince federal, state, and local officials to help finance plans to rejuvenate the Chicago area's outdated freight railroad network, which funnels $8 billion worth of freight through the city each year.

The current operation has railroads moving freight cars at an average 12 miles per hour among 57 yards around the Chicago area. Another 3,500 tractor-trailer trips occur daily as containerized freight is moved between the railroad yards. This traffic jam delays shipments and causes trains to block motorists at hundreds of grade crossings.

The UP Chicago agreement was one of four announced in the past month by Canadian National aimed at speeding the movement of freight on its system. The most far-reaching of the announcements, under which Canadian National and Canadian Pacific agreed to share tracks in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area, could make the Port of Vancouver more attractive to shippers now using the Port of Long Beach in southern California.