By Benjamin Yount   Illinois Statehouse News

CARLINVILLE  –  The fast trains won’t rumble down the tracks in downstate Illinois for another four years, but the state and the Union Pacific Railroad are starting to spend some of the billion dollars set aside to bring high speed rail to the Midwest.

Crews will begin upgrading the tracks on the line that stretches between Alton to just south of Springfield.  Officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation and Union Pacific on Tuesday explained just what that will mean for communities along that line during a series of public meetings.

George Weber with IDOT said most people will only notice some rail crossing closures.  But he added that the improvement work is just the first step.

“We’ll finish up to Springfield or go around Springfield by the end of this year or early next spring…It’s unknown yet if we’ll continue in Lincoln going north or start up at Dwight and come south.  But the goal is that by 2012, we’ll likely have a segment between Dwight and Pontiac in operation for trains at 110 miles per hour.”

A 15-mile-long work train will snake its way up the line from the Metro East to just outside of the capitol city.  Mike Payette, a lobbyist for Union Pacific, said the railroad and the state wanted to get started while there is still time left this year.  But that means closing parts of the track, and crossings, as the crews move north.

“Obviously you can’t have a high speed rail train overnight.  This is the first stretch,” Payette said.

Payette said getting that first stretch up and running has taken a lot of talking.  Railroad and state officials answered questions about the impact of both the immediate work and the long-term plans Tuesday.  Weber said everyone wants to be open and honest.

“You’re always going to have questions and concerns from the community on how this is going to impact their communities. Usually the main issue is the crossings and having access.”

Payette said, so far, there have not been any communities opposed to the high speed plan like Union Pacific saw in Springfield.  Neighbors and city leaders there fought the initial plans because the high speed line has been drawn to run through the city’s center.

“There’s already been a lot of information that has gone out.  The problem is that the township[s] that we didn’t have good e-mails for, we haven’t talked to those [communities] and we’re picking them up in meetings.”

Leaders from one of the communities at the Tuesday meeting said you can’t let one town’s opposition to the project cast a shadow on the plans for high speed rail.

Carlinville Public Works Director Mary Beth Bellm said her city will welcome the new railroad line, and the improvements to the rails crossings that are part of this first phase of work.

“I really don’t think there is just one thought.  A lot of people have a lot of different ideas,   ‘ said Bellm.  “A lot of people think that [high speed rail] is going to be a great boost and they really welcome it.  I understand the people in Springfield where they don’t want a train going 110 miles per hour right out their back door.  We’re a little more rural so that’s a little bit of a concern, but [the railroad and IDOT] have assured us it will slow down when it comes through town.”

Bellm said she wanted to ask about more pressing issues, like how will people in Carlinville get across town when the track work closes several railroad crossing in her town.

“We’ve got a couple of main crossings in town that they have assured us that will not be closed at the same time.  There will be some detours…there will be inconvenience for a few days as they close them.  But they did assure us that…everyone has access from one direction to another.”

This round of track work is the first, and perhaps will be the easiest in Illinois.  IDOT still has to get all of the permits and permission to start work on the tracks between Lincoln and Dwight.  Weber said that work isn’t slated to begin until 2011.  If the work all goes according to schedule some trains could be running at 110 miles per hour in 2012, but the full line is not expected to be upgraded until at least 2014.  And even then trains between Chicago and St. Louis will still be limited as they enter and exit both cities.

Federal officials and Gov. Pat Quinn have talked about Illinois as the center of a Midwestern high speed rail network.  But there is no price tag, or timeline, for that grander vision.