[www.chicagotribune.com]

Great Lakes Basin Transportation's proposed alternate route for its freight train line, which its officials have referred to as its preferred route, is raising questions with the federal agency that will determine its fate.

GLBT filed the new route last month. The route, which is about 21 miles shorter than the first one, includes significant changes through Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as Lowell and Westville. The route is essentially unchanged as it goes through southern Porter County.

The Surface Transportation Board's Office of Environmental Analysis asks for additional information on several fronts in a Tuesday filing, including details on travel times and rail line length limits that would prevent the project from being "commercially feasible," and for better explanation of the relevance of the Kingsbury Branch connection to South Shore Freight in LaPorte County, among other matters.

The deadline for GLBT to respond is Nov. 30. The agency, which will determine whether GLBT's proposal goes forward on a preferred route, an alternate one or not at all, also requested additional information last month about the average number of trains per day, the anticipated average operating speed for trains, and the anticipated average train length. That information is due to federal officials no later than Nov. 10.

"Great Lakes Basin intends to respond to these requests, but we can't comment on them in advance of our response," said Mike Blaszak, an attorney with GLBT.

GLBT's proposal, using $8 billion in private funds, would be the largest new rail line in recent times and is meant to provide a bypass for Chicago's congested rail yard and take trucks off the road. The route, from outside Milton, Wis., into LaPorte County, will have the capacity for up to 110 trains a day.

An attorney for opposition groups along the proposed route, including Residents Against the Invasion of Land by Eminent Domain in Lake and Porter counties, asked in a filing late last month for the comment period on the proposal to be opened up again, since the freight train line's new route would impact different people.

A statement on the STB's website for the project said the Office of Environmental Analysis "will update the public once a range of reasonable alternatives has been defined and will invite comment from the public on those alternatives prior to issuance of the Final Scope of Study."

There is no indication of when that might occur.

A comment period on the original route was extended twice before being closed out in July. The proposed freight train line drew hundreds of people to each of several public meetings in three states in the spring, and has generated more than 3,900 comments on the STB's website.