The 78-year-old Mt. Prospect man riding his blue mountain bike east on Central Road on Wednesday morning did just what he was supposed to do, dismounting and waiting patiently at the lowered guard gates as a Metra commuter train zipped past on the far track.
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But once that express train passed, Ebrahin Abdally did something hundreds of people do-illegally-each day, and paid for it with his life.
With the lights flashing and warning bells still ringing, Abdally, just a quarter-mile from his home, went around the drawn gate. He failed to see Chicago & North Western train No. 624 coming on the track closest to him as it headed into the nearby depot.
Abdally’s death compounded an already shocking statistic: Twelve people have died on tracks used or owned by Metra in the last three weeks.
“People at Metra can’t think of any other three-week period like this,” said Metra spokesman Chris Knapton.
Three of those deaths are suspected suicides, one occurred during the commission of a crime, and some involved Amtrak or freight trains, said Knapton.
This month’s rash of fatalities brings the number of people killed by a train in Illinois so far this year to 35. Last year at the end of June, 19 people had died, according to the Illinois Commerce Commission.
The startling figures have prompted Metra to take the unprecedented step of sending a “safety squad” to major suburban stations. During Wednesday’s rush hour, the team of five descended upon the Schaumburg depot on the Milwaukee West Commuter Line.
While commuters received free coffee and donuts, a video about train safety played on a portable TV monitor and Metra representatives gave out free windshield sun guards with safety reminders printed on the inside.
The squad has already been to the Downers Grove station, and the educational blitz will continue throughout the summer in Roselle, Elmhurst, Arlington Heights, Tinley Park and Deerfield.
Officials say train fatalities often occur as Abdally’s did, when a pedestrian does not realize the train that just passed may not be the only one on a set of multiple tracks. Abdally was killed instantly, according to police.
“They’ve got a mindset that it’s a single-track railroad and when the train is gone, it’s clear. But that’s rarely the case,” said Knapton.
Downers Grove Police Chief George P. Graves also said that after years of taking the same train at the same time, commuters get lulled by routines and don’t pay enough attention to what’s going on around them.
“They are in a rush,” said Graves, whose town has three Metra stations. “They get off the trains and are preoccupied with other things they have to do. Some are wearing earphones when they should really be alert.”
The three rules of train safety are engineering, education and enforcement, Graves said, and enforcement is a hard one.
“For a police officer to attempt to arrest anywhere from a dozen to 35 people (disregarding a lowered gate) at one time is practically an impossibility,” wrote Graves in a letter published in Metra’s commuter newsletter this month.
Most crossing gates on tracks used by Metra are programmed to descend 22 seconds before a train crosses an intersection. On tracks with older circuitry, a trigger to lower the gate is set a certain distance from the crossing, said Knapton.
A recently formed DuPage County task force on railroad crossing safety hopes to install video monitors at crossings to improve enforcement of drivers and pedestrians who disregard warning signals, said Lanny F. Wilson, the group’s chairman.
Wilson said the task force is also proposing an amendment to Illinois law to bring stiffer fines on people who cross the tracks illegally.
Wilson’s daughter, 14-year-old Lauren, was killed when the car driven by her older brother was hit by a Metra express train during the afternoon commute last March 2.
“I don’t want her death to go in vain,” said Wilson, of Hinsdale. “I want to carry this flag for her and hold it high.”
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