CSX and the CREATE program reached a major milestone on October 15, 2025, when the first train crossed the new Forest Hill Flyover. This structure, located southeast of where 74th Street and Western Avenue intersect in Chicago, carries CSX trackage over lines of Belt Railway of Chicago, Metra, and Norfolk Southern. The investment eliminates a long-standing bottleneck where an average of 30 SouthWest Service Metra trains and 35 freight trains intersect daily. As part of CREATE’s $380 million, 75th Street Corridor Improvement Project, the Forest Hill Flyover was funded by federal, state and local governments, along with the involved railroads. The on-time completion of this project during October concluded construction that began in 2022. While the first train ran in October, a ribbon-cutting wasn’t held until November 14. 

The reduction in delays at this former at-grade crossing benefits some of CSX’s most competitive intermodal traffic in the Chicago market, as this former B&O Chicago Terminal, double-track route is used by all trains in and out of the 59th Street intermodal terminal. This includes Trains I135 (Suffolk, Va.-Chicago) and counterpart I136, plus Trains I168 (Chicago-Port Newark, N.J.) and counterpart I169. Also using this route are several run-through trains that operate between the western roads at Chicago and CSX’s Northwest Ohio Intermodal Container Transfer Facility in North Baltimore, Ohio. These include Trains I171/I172 with the BNSF and Trains I191/I192 with Union Pacific. The flyover also handles ethanol, oil, and grain from both UP and BNSF, plus coal trains from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin destined to West Olive, Mich., when they do not use normal routing via the Belt Railway of Chicago.

—Scott Lindsey