In a frenzy of whining brakes and shrieking passengers, a Metra train derailed Saturday morning at almost the exact spot where a speeding commuter train leapt from the tracks two years ago.
Two riders were killed and 17 were seriously injured when the train, traveling the Rock Island District Line from Joliet to the LaSalle Station, left the rails as it crossed a set of switches near 48th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Although the speed of the train remains unknown, Metra officials said the train should have slowed to 10 m.p.h. as it changed tracks. Some regular passengers said the train seemed to be running exceptionally fast, but others said everything seemed normal before the brakes began to howl and riders shot out of their seats.
Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, would not say how fast the train was going but did say the speed was faster than 10 m.p.h.
Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said that a 22-year-old woman from Bourbonnais died at the scene and that a 30-year-old woman died later at Stroger Hospital–the first people to be killed in a derailment in Metra’s 21-year history.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office would not release the women’s identities, and officials had no information about their injuries.
Firefighters had to cut into some train cars and use Jaws of Life equipment to extract some passengers. Others freed themselves by climbing through broken windows.
Those hurt in the accident were taken to 15 area hospitals. Most escaped with scrapes, bruises and other minor wounds, but 17 were in “severe or serious condition,” Rosenker said.
Pardonnet said that the train and the track had been inspected Friday and that neither they nor the track’s signals showed any sign of problems. The train’s engineer also gave no sign of alarm in radio transmissions before the accident, she said.
The engineer was a relative newcomer on the route, having spent only 45 days on the Joliet-to-Chicago line, Pardonnet said. However, he had finished a six-month Metra training program and had five and a half years of experience running freight trains for CSX.
The derailment left him with slight injuries, but he was released from a local hospital late Saturday, a Metra spokesman said.
“As you can imagine, it’s a very traumatic experience,” said Phil Pagano, executive director of the commuter-rail service.
Following standard procedure, the dispatchers and all four crew members are being tested for drugs and alcohol, Metra officials said.
The train left Joliet at 7:24 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive at LaSalle Street at 8:45 a.m. But nine minutes before it was to reach its destination, the locomotive and five double-decker passenger cars twisted off the rails and skidded about 1,000 feet, coming to rest just across a bridge spanning 47th Street.
The force of the accident snapped the link between two of the cars, and all were left listing. The jolt injured two crew members and 80 of the train’s 185 passengers.
Annie Anderson, 24, of Blue Island, said some passengers limped from the train, their faces damp with tears.
“I feel really lucky compared to some of the people I saw being taken away,” she said.
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The accident was strikingly similar to a derailment on the same stretch of track in 2003. In that case, the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary finding was that a Metra engineer had sped through a 10 m.p.h. zone at almost 70 m.p.h., causing the train to jump the rails at the spot where it was supposed to switch from one track to another.
The lead locomotive toppled onto its side, a fuel tank split open and caught fire and the passenger cars smashed into each other. Despite injuries to 45 of the train’s 300 passengers, there were no fatalities.
A final report on that accident, which was due before Labor Day this year, has yet to be released.
Metra officials said the location of the two crashes might be a coincidence, but at a news briefing, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) questioned whether the rail infrastructure was sound.
He said he wanted to know “if it’s something systemic or something equipment-wise that we need to do.”
The safety board has 13 investigators looking at Saturday’s crash. They will review the train’s event recorder–similar to an airplane’s “black box”–to see how fast the train was going.
“We will be analyzing the wreckage itself and in photos. We’ll also be actually walking through the wreckage,” Rosenker said. “We’ll be taking a look at every area. We will be able to tell a great deal once we have begun a full-scale investigation.”
Safety board officials said the work should take nine months to a year. The Federal Railroad Administration will run a simultaneous examination of the tracks, the operating signals, equipment and operating procedures, spokesman Steve Kulm said. That report likely will be released in several months, he said.
Service on the Rock Island District line resumed about four hours after the derailment, though the trains were running late on parallel tracks. Metra officials said that delays could continue through Sunday but that trains should be back on schedule by Monday.
A Chicago Police Department spokesman said passengers’ personal property is being kept at the Wentworth District Station at 5101 S. Wentworth Ave. Those who would like to claim their belonging should call 312-747-8380.
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Other fatal train crashes in Chicago area
– Feb. 23, 1930: Twelve people were killed when a high-speed Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad electric train hit a car that had driven onto the tracks near Kenosha, ignoring a crossing signal.
– April 25, 1946: A Chicago, Burlington & Quincy express train, traveling about 75 m.p.h., struck the rear of another Burlington train that had made an unscheduled stop in Naperville, killing 45 people and injuring more than 100.
– May 25, 1950: A Chicago streetcar collided with a gasoline truck at 62nd and State Streets, resulting in 33 deaths.
– Oct. 30, 1972: Forty-five people were killed and 350 were injured at the 27th Street Station when an Illinois Central Gulf Railroad commuter train that apparently was exceeding the speed limit slammed into the rear of another train, which had overshot the station and was backing up to it.
– Feb. 4, 1977: One CTA train hit the rear of another on elevated train tracks at the corner of Lake Street and Wabash Avenue during the evening rush hour sending two cars plunging to the street and two others propped on the elevated structure with one end on the pavement below. Eleven people were killed and 180 injured. (The description of the 1977 CTA train crash has been added to this list.)
– Jan. 18, 1993: Seven passengers were killed and more than 60 were injured when two Chicago, South Shore & South Bend trains sideswiped one another near the west side of a narrow bridge in Gary.
– Oct. 25, 1995: Seven students were killed when a Metra train hit the bus they were riding near U.S. Highway 14 and Algonquin Road in Fox River Grove.
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– June 18, 1998: Three passengers aboard a South Shore Railroad commuter train were killed and six people were injured when the train struck a semitrailer truck carrying a 20-ton coil of steel that was straddling the tracks in Portage, Ind.
– March 15, 1999: A trucker drove his rig onto railroad tracks, near Bourbonnais, Ill., and was struck by an Amtrak train. The crash killed 11 people and injured 122.
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