What Amtrak has told Bridgeport about the Canal Street Yard - and what it hasn't. Amtrak has published a website, a 17-question FAQ and the slide deck it presented Aug. 20 in Armour Square for the maintenance facility it wants to build in the Canal Street rail yard. Here is what the company has said, in its own numbers, and what its materials leave out. The Canal Street Yard runs along the north side of the Norfolk Southern/Metra embankment between Canal and Stewart streets, from about Cermak and Archer south to Pershing, split at 31st Street. Amtrak's plan puts a nine-track storage yard and car wash on the north half and a five-track enclosed train shed on the south half between 33rd and 35th, across Canal from White Sox parking Lot G. Existing ramps at 25th Place, 29th and 33rd-35th would be rebuilt; 23rd stays closed. Amtrak puts the cost at roughly $900 million: $572 million from a Federal Railroad Administration grant, $87 million more in federal money for viaduct repairs between Cermak and Pershing, and the balance from Canal Edge LLC, Justin Ishbia's development company, including more than $125 million of Ishbia's own capital. Amtrak would own the facility. The delivery team is Canal Edge, contractors F.H. Paschen and Harbour Contractors, and engineering firm WSP. The timeline Amtrak gave Aug. 20: land acquisition from Union Pacific "still pending" this summer; permitting, final design and site prep this fall; about 18 months of construction starting in 2027; operations in 2027-28. Amtrak says its 14th Street campus south of Union Station is undersized and fragmented, forcing crews to split trainsets and shuttle equipment between buildings. Chicago handles eight state-supported and eight long-distance routes, 28 daily departures and more than 1,200 Amtrak employees. The company says it evaluated three sites before 2023 - 14th Street in place, Union Pacific's Global 1 at 1535 S. Western, and Canal Street - and chose Canal Street because it could be built without working around live trains. The comparison Amtrak is making Amtrak's case to the neighborhood rests on one comparison: the yard as it ran under Union Pacific versus the yard as Amtrak would run it. The company says the site was a UP intermodal terminal handling 150,000-plus container lifts a year at its peak, with 40- to 60-foot rubber-tired gantry cranes moving 20- to 40-ton boxes on and off railcars. Activity fell after UP opened its Global 4 terminal in Joliet in 2010, and the yard has seen little use since 2019. Every impact rating in Amtrak's deck - "lower" for light, noise, vibration, traffic and emissions; "marginal" for sightlines - is measured against that freight era, not against the empty yard as it is today. The graphic below lays the two out side by side using Amtrak's own figures. Amtrak also cited IDOT traffic counts to argue the neighborhood's streets carried far more traffic when the freight yard was active: 35th Street fell from 15,900 vehicles a day in 2006 to 6,150 in 2019; 31st from 16,100 to 9,100; 23rd from 9,300 to 4,750; Archer from 15,300 to 12,400; Pershing from 15,400 to 14,500. On the questions residents have asked most, the FAQ says: the facility runs around the clock because trains run on fixed schedules, but maintenance and inspection happen inside the shed; outdoor activity is trains moving at 5 to 10 mph between the storage tracks and the building; locomotives plug into wayside power rather than idle; there is no car-dropping or freight sorting. Amtrak projects about 3,000 construction workers over the build and about 400 permanent jobs, and says it will hold local hiring fairs. On the environment, Amtrak says its assessments found conditions "consistent with" a historic rail and industrial property and that soil handling will follow applicable rules. It has not published the assessments. It says it will show initial renderings at community meetings this fall; none exist yet. The fake image Amtrak has posted a one-page rebuttal of an image circulating in Bridgeport, styled like an Amtrak slide and titled "Proposed CE Build-Out: Two Phases," that shows a second phase reaching into residential blocks and parkland. Amtrak says it is fake and apparently AI-generated, that it "is not proposing and is not evaluating" acquiring any residential property or parkland, and that any future expansion would need new funding and new environmental review. What the materials don't say Amtrak's website, FAQ and deck do not mention what happens to the 14th Street yard once it is vacated, do not name Ishbia in connection with that site, and do not mention any future joint ventures with Canal Edge. All three appear in the Illinois delegation's Jan. 26 letter supporting Amtrak's grant application, which describes the Bridgeport deal as "the first of several anticipated joint ventures" between Amtrak and Canal Edge, says Canal Edge's private funds would also improve the south end of 14th Street, and lists "new riverfront development opportunities" among the benefits. On Sept. 5, Ishbia announced "The Railyards," a riverside development on 14th Street that would include a new White Sox ballpark. The materials also do not address whether Amtrak needs any City of Chicago approval. The FAQ's only reference to local process is that permitting occurs this fall. Amtrak has set up MWMaintenanceFacility.com, an email address ([email protected]) and a phone line, (708) 475-0990, for questions.

Developer unveils plans for project with ballpark at site of current Amtrak yard in Chicago. David Lassen Sat, September 5, 2026 at 2:04 PM PDT * Developer Canal Edge has unveiled plans for a new development in Chicago, including a potential new ballpark for the White Sox, residential, commercial, and retail space, and a Northwestern Medicine health care facility. CHICAGO - The development firm led by Chicago businessman Justin Ishbia today (Saturday, Sept. 5) unveiled plans for a new development on the site of Amtrak's current 14th Street Coach Yard. It would include a new Chicago White Sox ballpark and Northwestern Medicine health care facilities, as well as residential, commercial and retail development. At the same time, a new website is offering details on the relocated Amtrak Midwest Maintenance Facility that would make possible redevelopment of the current Amtrak coach yard. ,The new maintenance site, to include a five-track maintenance "trainshed" and a nine-track storage yard, would stretch over about 1.8 miles south of the current facility, paralleling Canal Street between Archer and Pershing streets. Its north end would be about 2 miles from Chicago Union Station; the current yard is about a mile away. A press release from developer Canal Edge makes it clear that the development to be known as The Railyards is "at the beginning of a multi-year planning and approval process." Similarly, the ballpark is only "a potential anchor," the company says, still requiring a study and feasibility review evaluating factors ranging from transportation to environmental impact. Those qualifiers are necessary because of both potential public opposition and the fact that Ishbia is not yet in a position to make definitive statements about the future of the White Sox. As the press release notes, Ishbia "has an agreement in place with current White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf that includes an option to purchase the franchise following the 2034 season. Reinsdorf remains the sole decision maker for the franchise until that time." A further qualifier is that Canal Edge's control of the current Amtrak land is dependent on moving the current maintenance facility further south. It would be built at the site of Union Pacific's Canal Street Yard, which UP has agreed to sell, and Amtrak last month received $572 million in federal National Railroad Partnership Program money for the project [see "Amtrak gets funding ...," Trains.com, Aug. 14, 2026]. The facility is expected to cost more than $900 million, with Ishbia putting in more than $125 million in personal capital. The contract between the parties calls for Canal Edge to build the maintenance facility, then sell it to Amtrak. At that point, Canal Edge will gain control of the land at the 14th Street yard. But the maintenance project is encountering opposition from the Bridgeport neighborhood that is the site of the new facility. The news site Block Club Chicago reports more than 100 people attended a Sept. 2 community meeting to express concerns about environmental and other impacts of the maintenance project. The website on the new maintenance facility, created by a joint venture of construction firms FH Paschen and Harbour, appears designed at least in part to address some of those concerns. It includes a "Frequently Asked Questions" section with such questions as "Will there be more truck traffic on our streets?" and "Will there be noise overnight, and if so, what generates that noise?" It also includes a presentation from an Aug. 20 Amtrak meeting with residents. Canal Edge says The Railyards project "would convert long-underutilized rail and industrial land into one of the city's most significant economic opportunities in a generation." Ishbia said in a statement, "The Railyards is about turning idle land into opportunity - for patients who need better access to care, for a team and its fans who deserve a dynamic riverfront home, and for a city that needs jobs, housing, and economic investment. This is a Chicago project, built by and for Chicagoans, and we are excited about its potential." Crain's Chicago Business first reported the plans for The Railyards. In a paywalled article, it estimates that the renderings from Canal Edge show a project covering more than 80 acres, far more than the 47 acres of the Amtrak site. Crain's says Ishbia is "in advanced talks" with BNSF Railway to acquire air rights for development above the BNSF yard for Metra operations at 14th Street. That yard is on the west side of the main lines leading to Union Station, while the Amtrak yard is on the east side. Crain's also reports that Ishbia-led companies have paid $20 million for adjacent land not included in renderings of The Railyards. Another Ishbia-led company is seeking $1.8 billion in low-interest loans through the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program, which funds transit-oriented development as well as railroad projects.