Accident at Kedzie(Brown Line) Station

[sw4400]

I missed out on seeing it firsthand, but tried to get there via the #82 Kimball/Homan Bus. Power was cut off on both directions North and South. But people still tried boarding @ Addison, despite the Customer Service Attendants telling them service was suspended.

Here's the link... all I saw when I got there were CPD cars and thick, dark wheel marks, about the width of a truck wheel.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=n...&id=6693268

[Kevin]

When will people learn that the train always wins?

[Chicago13]

When will people learn that the train always wins?

There will always be a certain percentage of arrogant and ultimately very stupid people who hold driver's licenses. Too bad an I.Q. test isn't part of the requirement to hold one.

[Guest]

I overheard the accident on the fire dept radio.

[jajuan]

I actually heard about it shortly after it occurred on MSNBC before seeing mention of it on the local news.

[Busjack]

When will people learn that the train always wins?

A train that size, I don't know.*

Also, since it was pulling out of the station, how fast could it have been going, and couldn't it have stopped if the truck was blocking the tracks? Even if the truck was obviously violating the law?

___

* Take, for instance, the South Shore train that hit the steel truck in Burns Harbor, resulting in a coil puncturing the front and killing one on the train.

[trainman8119]

When will people learn that the train always wins?

Actually there are two instances in which the train does not actually "win". First being train vs steel/concrete flatbed. The steel and/or concrete can do severe damage to a train. And second

and absolute is train vs oil/gas tanker. Those are the two that absolutely scare the bejesus out

of an engineer. Also, Busjack's mention of the South Shore vs the coil steel is a very good

illustration of this !!!

Train doesn't need to be going that fast to cause damage. The fact that nobody was

hurt shows that the train wasn't going that fast, but look at the truck to see the result. It appears the truck blew the gates (probably a blind spot from the trains standpoint in the station) as the train was departing...so we are talking reaction time and when did the operator actually see the truck in order to put the train in emergency.

[BusHunter]

Actually there are two instances in which the train does not actually "win". First being train vs steel/concrete flatbed. The steel and/or concrete can do severe damage to a train. And second

and absolute is train vs oil/gas tanker. Those are the two that absolutely scare the bejesus out

of an engineer. Also, Busjack's mention of the South Shore vs the coil steel is a very good

illustration of this !!!

Train doesn't need to be going that fast to cause damage. The fact that nobody was

hurt shows that the train wasn't going that fast, but look at the truck to see the result. It appears the truck blew the gates (probably a blind spot from the trains standpoint in the station) as the train was departing...so we are talking reaction time and when did the operator actually see the truck in order to put the train in emergency.

I'm also thinking about the crash a few years back in Bourbannais between an Amtrak and a flatbed truck with a steel coil. That killed a few passengers as well. That guy like the guy here went around the crossing gates. Not only is the guy risking his life and his cargo, he's risking a lawsuit against him and the company if anybody gets hurt or dies on the train. You see this over and over with passenger cars too. Remember the person in Hammond or Gary that was on video trying to beat the train speeding through a parking lot to beat it. I don't know why the state doesn't mandate crossing gates on both sides of the street to prevent this from occuring. From a CTA perspective, I wonder why there's no stop sign there for the trains. It seems a busy enough intersection. They used to have one similar at Cicero/Pink Line. At least then you can see these yo-yo's ahead of time.

[Busjack]

I don't know why the state doesn't mandate crossing gates on both sides of the street to prevent this from occurring.

That gets into the whole story about the whistle rule, which appears to be waived in the Chicago area. The idea was either that the train had to blow its whistle, or there had to be sufficient means to keep drivers from going around the gates, such as a divider in the middle of the road. (That kind of divider is at the Metra MDN crossings on Dundee and Techny Roads in Northbrook).

I suppose that the argument against having gates on the left side of the road going down at the same time as the ones on the right (in the absence of a divider) is that cars would be unwittingly trapped on the tracks by an approaching train.

[T8H5307A]

From a CTA perspective, I wonder why there's no stop sign there for the trains. It seems a busy enough intersection. They used to have one similar at Cicero/Pink Line. At least then you can see these yo-yo's ahead of time.

There used to be stop signs for the trains at Kedzie also. Not sure when they were removed. I always thought it was a good idea , considering the blind spots coming up to that crossing and how busy the street is.