Indeed, Chicago and the Mississippi River is the dividing line in the North American rail network. UP and BNSF dominate western US, CSX and NS the eastern US, CN and CP dominate Canada, and large regionals like KCS, the Mexico side is similarly or more abysmal.

Unfortunately they don’t integrate that well together to form a cohesive network. CP is attempting to buy KCS/KCSM to create something of a NAFTA/USMCA railroad, but it’s not clear it would deliver those benefits without harming competition in the existing setup. Ideally the rail infrastructure would be publicly owned and invested in, and any train operator could transport from any location to any location on the North American rail network.

The Chicago region has dozens of very large rail yards, with construction of new yards and expansion of existing yards ongoing. It would take a lot of investment elsewhere to eclipse: Russia/Moscow is making a strategic investment that will pay large dividends for them for decades to come.