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player ready...Lockport has three of the five rail crossings that state officials say have serious signal flaws similar to the one in Fox River Grove where seven teens were fatally injured when their school bus was hit by a commuter train, it was disclosed Friday.
One of those Lockport crossings, at Illinois Highway 171 and Division Street, was the site of a 1990 train-vehicle accident in which four young people died, officials said. The other Lockport crossings are where 2nd and 9th Streets intersect with Illinois 171.
Faulty railroad warning devices were also located near the rail crossings at U.S. Highway 14 and Eastern Avenue in Barrington and at Illinois Highway 22 and Prairie Avenue in Lake County.
The five crossings were among 24 inspected this week by the Illinois Department of Transportation following the Oct. 25 Fox River Grove tragedy.
State officials said the railroad warning devices at those locations were also found to be sending erratic electronic messages to traffic signals located at the crossings. They said this created situations in which motorists might not have time to clear the tracks as trains approach.
The agency is taking steps to lengthen the escape time.
Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that its ongoing inquiry into what caused last month’s fatal crash will include a review of the history of the widening at U.S. 14 at the Fox River Grove crossing, according to spokesman Pat Cariseo.
A widening project on the highway, which runs parallel to the tracks at the accident site, wound up squeezing the amount of space separating the tracks and highway. The NTSB wants to determine whether that project played any role in the accident, Cariseo said.
The road-widening project was completed in 1990, following years of wrangling among state, local and railroad officials.
Village officials, determined to preserve street-side parking for downtown businesses, favored a proposal that would have moved the highway within 21 feet of the tracks, according to state records.
Railroad officials argued that for safety’s sake, the distance between the road and the middle of the nearest set of rails should be at least 50 feet.
Ultimately, the distance wound up being just shy of 47 feet, according to NTSB measurements.
A few more feet could have been critical. The amount of overlap between the rear of the school bus, stopped at a red light just past the crossing, and the oncoming train was 3 1/2 feet, NTSB officials said.