A CTA Yellow Line train was heading into the Howard station on the North Side Nov. 16 when it crashed into a snow removal train on the tracks, leaving 38 people injured, three of them critically.
The crash was “incredibly scary for those who were on board,” Sun-Times reporter Sophie Sherry told Natalie Moore subbing for host Sasha Ann-Simons on WBEZ’s reset Tuesday.
Sherry, joined by transportation expert Joseph Schwieterman, explained what this crash, and other recent train crashes, mean for rail safety.
Here are the takeaways from the conversation:
One family’s experience on board during the CTA crash
Sherry spoke with the mom of two-year-old twins and her father, who were all aboard the Yellow Line train car when it crashed.
Steven Helmer, who was visiting from New York, boarded the train with his wife, daughter and grandchildren for the twins’ “first choo choo train ride.”
“Steven actually shared with me a lot of photos of the family posing on the platform there, just excited to get on board with the kids,” Sherry said. “Unfortunately, that obviously changed very quickly.”
“They were all in the first car and described sort of flying up as the train crashed into the snowplow machine,” Sherry said. “Thankfully, the twins were strapped into their stroller, which their mother Margaret attributes to them not being seriously injured or injured at all.”
Steven was the most injured of the family, requiring 12 stitches at the hospital.
“The whole family is just thankful that they weren’t more seriously injured,” Sherry said. “They really applauded the work of the first responders who got them out of there and attended those more seriously injured, but the family has a lot of questions as to how this could happen.”
An ‘uptick’ in crashes
“We have seen certainly an uptick and it’s discouraging,” Schwieterman, who is the director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, said. “I think a lot of the problems pertain to attentiveness either of drivers, truck drivers, train crew, but even more importantly, drivers who are crossing railway tracks. And it’s just been really disconcerting to see a number [of] accidents. Last week, we had 200 passengers on a train near Buffalo hitting an empty car. So it’s an unfortunate fact of post-pandemic life.”
Freight train crashes versus CTA crashes
Just days after the CTA crash, a freight train backed into a FedEx semitruck in Back of the Yards, killing the 29-year-old truck diver.
“You can stop a L train reasonably quick and it’s a couple thousand feet sometimes, but a freight train, a two-mile freight train, may take a couple of miles to stop,” Schwieterman said.
“If it’s on a downhill grade and it’s a long train, it’s very difficult to slow the momentum of a train like that in a certain context. The CTA with short trains like on the Purple Line, those trains can stop pretty quick because of the fairly light nature of it. They’re not carrying massive locomotives or fuel. But boy, you get on mainline railroading and it’s a whole different thing.”
Questions that remain after the CTA crash
“There’s still a fair amount of mystery about what happened,” Schwieterman said.
Sherry said the safety board estimated the full investigation will take 12 to 18 months.
“We know that there may have been an issue in terms of the design, and how much distance was needed for a train car like this to break,” Sherry said. “The safety board has also addressed some possible concerns about human error. They have said that it doesn’t appear that this conductor was distracted ... so those are some of the things they have shared with us thus far as this investigation really just gets underway.”
The train was designed to be able to stop within 1,780 feet of an object it its path, but didn’t, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
“The thing I’m curious about is the visual line of the conductor, the motorman, when he could see that train in front coming around that curve,” Schwieterman said.
Schwieterman also brought up questions about residue on the tracks, with leaves and oil potentially causing some issues.
“The safety board has made mention of this, but we don’t really know yet if there were things on the tracks affecting the breaking of the train,” Sherry said.
Another question is why a snow removal train was on the tracks at this time — according to Schwieterman, equipment like that is usually moved at night when the Yellow Line is shut down.
“The CTA has told us this plow was there for training reasons, preparing for the winter months,” Sherry said. “So, it was conducting business there, we just don’t know why right there and at that time.”
‘Positive train control’ as a possible solution
“PTC is a system of interconnected wireless devices that can automatically break a train when it sees the trains in harm’s way,” Schwieterman said.
Other agencies have adopted the system, which Schwieterman said is “much more sophisticated” than the GPS-based systems.
“It’s really mandated by Congress after a terrible accident on Amtrak a number of years ago,” Schwieterman said. “And most of the freight railroads and Metra now have PTC, but it’s proven a bridge too far for some of the rail transit agencies.”
Interview summary by Katie Anthony with the Chicago Sun-Times. Interview by WBEZ’s Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons.
