The buzz on the Weber Yahoo group seems to imply that the Village of Lincolnwood had a salvage crew pull out the tracks, perhaps without the knowledge or permission of UP. Maybe they wanted to prevent it from being used in the future for industrial purposes or wanted to speed the conversion to a bike trail. Who knows.
The same thing happened in South Bend in the 1980s when city crews ripped out a Conrail line they wanted to use for a bike path without Conrail\'s permission. It was out-of-service but not officially abandoned. South Bend tried to force the issue by taking this action.