Carl -
Isn’t that you home base?That would be the UP Metra line, yes?
Chico
Except for the CSS&SB, all commuter trains into and out of Chicago are run by Metra, a governmental-type agency supported by, among other things, part of our sales tax.
Lombard is on the old West line of the UP, previously C&NW. There are two other UP commuter lines: Northwest and West, and they comprise all of the rail transportation into and out of the Ogilvie Transportation Center downtown, west of the Chicago River. Before Ogilvie and a skycraper on top were built, it was commonly referred to as “C(and)NW Station.” Old-timers like me occasionally slip and use the old term.
Yes, you have the right line. A westbound stack train apparently hit a car at the Elizabeth Street crossing (Channel 5 has given the wrong crossing–[%-)]). It must have happened a little before 3:00 p.m.; I was unable to use the crossing to get home from work. When I got there, a fire engine and an ambulance were on the scene; as I write this, I’m still hearing the news-choppers overhead, even though it’s dark (they hadn’t gotten there yet when I was coming home from work). Elizabeth Street is the nearest crossing to our house, 0.62 miles away.
Oh–crossing signals were definitely functioning normally. This is a good system, with gates lowering dependent on train speed. There were no scoots in the area at the time, though some were due shortly after I left the scene. A westbound scoot (none due for a good 20 minutes) will drop the gates at Elizabeth (which is about a quarter-mile west of the station) just before stopping at the station, but they will rise, allowing the traffic to cross, and go down again after a few seconds when the train leaves the station.
6:30 p.m. Bad news–this collision resulted in a fatality. Killed was the mother of Astronaut Dan Tani (a Lombardian through high school), currently on the International Space Station. She reportedly drove around the lowered gates.
So will they try to get Dan down? I know Atlantis is not slated to go up until January.
Hey, all - first post -
I got tired of the news choppers above my house (I work from home) and noticed the trains moving slowly outside my window so I threw my camera in the car and went to check it out.
It was bad and sad – when I crossed the tracks at Finley the UP westbound had the crews out and were examining the trucks and left side running gear, which told me it was a car collision.
The westbound stopped 1/4 of a mile from the strike. The car was a mess.
I enjoy the photos on www.railpictures.com so I took some photos of the stopped freight and two of the wrecked car. After I found out the lady didn’t survive, I decided not to post the photos because it seems kind of ghoulish to me.
I live three houses down from the main and am used to hearing the trains go by, so often I don’t even notice them. Funny how strange it is when I’m hard at work and notice the different sound of a commuter train all wound out but moving at 5mph.
Incidentally, 1/8 mi. from where the train was parked is a bridge over the DuPage river where, in the 70’s I’m told, a car full of chemicals derailed into the river and killed all the fish down to the Fox river.
The spot where the train stopped is popular with suicides – there have been two or three there so far this year. The last one apparently waved at the crew as he stood in front of the oncoming train.
On a lighter note, I’ve been trying to convince my wife for years that the silver doghouse at the tracks is where the guy who operates the crossing signals lives. His address begins with “MP…” and when the UP trucks are there, he’s got com
Welcome, MXR!
Your DuPage River story is just a legend. I do remember one wreck on the curve there, but that wasn’t the hazmat spill. The one that made the news was the Glen Ellyn wreck in May 1976–a car of anhydrous ammonia ruptured and caused an evacuation. When the vapors were hosed down, they got into the Glen Ellyn storm sewer system, and flowed into Lake Ellyn, killing all of the fish there.
By the way, my avatar photo was made from the intersection at the crossing where the incident occurred. There’s no problem at all with visibility at this point.
On local news: An eyewitness said the woman drove around a schoolbus and became trapped. (Her words.)
They just said on the radio that the woman was 90yr old [%-)]
As long as C&NW are carved into the entryway (skyway entrance), I will call it the Northwest Station! Is it not true that UP operates the METRA trains on its 3 lines?
While this story is certainly tragic and sad (not to mention that it did NOT have to happen)…it is testament to the fact that just because you may be older and have lived a long time and have seen a lot, you are NOTnecessarily either smart or practice common sense. This accident did NOT have to happen if the victim had NOTviolated the law of not passing a stopped school bus and then if she had followed the message of the very old saying “look-listen-live” offered to all of us for so many years by Operation Lifesaver.
Thanks for setting me straight, Carl!
Here’s something else I remembered after I posted last night – I’d just gotten my first big-boy car with my own money, a 1994 Jeep Wrangler. Traffic had stopped at that same intersection on Elizabeth and St. Charles and I was on the south side of the tracks. So far, so good.
The stoplight went green and my traffic started moving. Some turkey blows the light and almost causes an accident. Traffic stops with me on the tracks. So far, maybe not so good.
The guy who ran the light stopped in the intersection and got in a screaming match with someone who almost hit him. Out of the car pointing and waving. There’s three of us on the tracks, I’m in the middle. So far, they are wasting my time and I’m starting to get uncomfortable. Much honking in the column of stopped traffic. Sure enough, the gates go down. So far, so bad.
Westbound freight’s coming, I can’t back up because traffic is packed. I can’t go forward because traffic is packed. I had time to consider wether or not my roll bar would help my cause and how much trouble I’d get in if I bashed the car in front of me to get the hell out of the way.
Traffic moved, the day was saved, I’m sure the crew gave us all the finger as we got the hell out of the way and the train passed.
There was much shaking afterward and swearing and the coppery taste of adrenaline. Sucked.
That same intersection used to be a great place to get your jalopy airborn when you were a teenager, before they leveled it all out. Or so I heard.
mxr
MXR: Ouch! I would’ve abandoned the car once the train got really close! (maybe the insurance company would pay for it…[8D]) The roll bars probobly wouldn’t do anything, BTW.
Jeep roll bars are decorative…not protective.
One just has to wonder what was going through her mind as she sat behind the school bus and honked, then drove around it. The bus would have blocked her view of the train as she was alongside it, but it shouldn’t have when she was behind it–and there are enough gates and lights at that crossing to be seen from anywhere. The bus would also have hidden the car from the train crew until it was too late to even sound the horn for her.
When I got as close as I could to the crossing yesterday, I saw the school bus sitting there–and I just hoped that it hadn’t been directly involved (I knew it had to have been involved somehow, or it wouldn’t have stayed there).
Yes it was!!! I grew up in Lombard on the south side of Roosevelt, but had many friends that lived north of St. Charles. As long as church wasn’t letting out I would be able to get some good air there.[angel]
Oh, yeah! We saner people used to tread very lightly over that one. (In fact I had been thinking about how smooth the crossing still was when I went over it the morning before the incident.)
Couldn’t fly any more, though–they put a stop sign northbound on Elizabeth ahead of Parkside (to allow left-turners crossing the tracks to get out of the way).
I’ll bet you could have gotten airborne at Park Blvd., though, when it was still open!
The driver was 90 years old and the mother of one of our astronauts currently on the space station. he Won;t be back for several months.
I’ve said this before, and I’m saying it again.
I wish the grey matter-challenged local news media would learn how to write headlines about these incidents.
Why not
Woman killed driving car in front of train
instead of
Train hits car, kills woman driver
The second one implies blame on the train and I suppose the engineer.
Aaaaargh!
Right on PZ, but the media gets better ratings using their headline.