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A Metra Northwest Line train collided with a truck that apparently drove through crossing gates in Mount Prospect this morning, killing the truck driver and causing the front train car to derail.
All the train cars remained upright but at least 29 passengers were taken to hospitals and 10 others were treated on the scene. Officials said none of the injuries aboard the train appeared life-threatening, though the engineer was listed in critical condition.
The truck driver was identified as Kazimierz Karasek, 59, from Prospect Heights.
The impact sheared the trailer from the cab, which landed to the side of the intersection. The train came to a stop after clearing the crossing, the second car black from soot because of fire from the truck. Listing to the side, the car's inside was a mess of jagged metal, riders' business papers and make-up, according to Des Plaines deputy fire chief Ron Eilken.
"It's amazing that no one got seriously hurt," he said.
Passengers said there was no warning before the collision.
"There was no horn, there was no braking, there was an explosion," said Sarah Flashing, who was headed to work in Park Ridge and sitting on the upper level of one of the lead cars. "I have never been in so much shock. I can’t stop crying."
Passengers popped out windows on the upper level to get out, witnesses said. "They were breaking the windows on the second floor of the train and jumping out of there," said Zack Ladner, 21, who lives four houses from the scene.
Several passengers said their first thought was a terrorist act. But Mount Prospect Police Commander John Wagner dismissed those fears. "It just appears to be a driver in a hurry," he said.
The train, No. 636, was headed inbound from Harvard when it hit the truck on the crossing at about 8:40 a.m. at Seger near the Cumberland station in Mount Prospect, said Michael Gillis, a spokesman for Metra.
The truck was carrying load of concrete and was headed northwest on Northwest Highway, police said. It turned left onto Mount Prospect Road and through the crossing, Wagner said, adding that the gates were down and the signals were working.
The front train car came to rest roughly 200 yards east of Mount Prospect road, a gash slicing the metal above the lower row of windows.
The driver was thrown from his truck, officials said. For hours after the crash, his body lay covered and hidden from view by orange barricades a few feet from the intersection, several feet from the truck's cab. Nearby, fire crews checked for injuries among the droves of passengers milling about the lawns along Northwest Highway.
Union Pacific spokesman Wes Lujan said the gates at the crossing were "operating as designed."
"We believe that he drove around the gates," Lujan said at a news conference.
He said crossing design is an "issue" because of Northwest Highway's diagonal slant, but he added, "There's no reason to go around (the gates)."
A similar accident involving the same kind of truck happened almost 10 years ago at the Mount Prospect Road and Northwest Highway intersection, according to Des Plaines fire officials.
In today's accident, Wagner said the driver would have disregarded a "No Left Turn" sign, in addition to the gates and crossing lights. The driver had to cross into the northbound lanes of Mount Prospect Road to get around the northern gate, he said. That left the cab squarely on the tracks as the train blew through the intersection, and the trailer and cab bent like a jacknife, with the trailer hitting the train cars.
Flashing, 41, said the collision felt like "the train was on top of something. It shook terribly, from right to left, like we were going to fall on the tracks. . .I felt we were going to end up on the tracks.
All the train cars remained upright but at least 29 passengers were taken to hospitals and 10 others were treated on the scene. Officials said none of the injuries aboard the train appeared life-threatening, though the engineer was listed in critical condition.
The truck driver was identified as Kazimierz Karasek, 59, from Prospect Heights.
The impact sheared the trailer from the cab, which landed to the side of the intersection. The train came to a stop after clearing the crossing, the second car black from soot because of fire from the truck. Listing to the side, the car's inside was a mess of jagged metal, riders' business papers and make-up, according to Des Plaines deputy fire chief Ron Eilken.
"It's amazing that no one got seriously hurt," he said.
Passengers said there was no warning before the collision.
"There was no horn, there was no braking, there was an explosion," said Sarah Flashing, who was headed to work in Park Ridge and sitting on the upper level of one of the lead cars. "I have never been in so much shock. I can’t stop crying."
Passengers popped out windows on the upper level to get out, witnesses said. "They were breaking the windows on the second floor of the train and jumping out of there," said Zack Ladner, 21, who lives four houses from the scene.
Several passengers said their first thought was a terrorist act. But Mount Prospect Police Commander John Wagner dismissed those fears. "It just appears to be a driver in a hurry," he said.
The train, No. 636, was headed inbound from Harvard when it hit the truck on the crossing at about 8:40 a.m. at Seger near the Cumberland station in Mount Prospect, said Michael Gillis, a spokesman for Metra.
The truck was carrying load of concrete and was headed northwest on Northwest Highway, police said. It turned left onto Mount Prospect Road and through the crossing, Wagner said, adding that the gates were down and the signals were working.
The front train car came to rest roughly 200 yards east of Mount Prospect road, a gash slicing the metal above the lower row of windows.
The driver was thrown from his truck, officials said. For hours after the crash, his body lay covered and hidden from view by orange barricades a few feet from the intersection, several feet from the truck's cab. Nearby, fire crews checked for injuries among the droves of passengers milling about the lawns along Northwest Highway.
Union Pacific spokesman Wes Lujan said the gates at the crossing were "operating as designed."
"We believe that he drove around the gates," Lujan said at a news conference.
He said crossing design is an "issue" because of Northwest Highway's diagonal slant, but he added, "There's no reason to go around (the gates)."
A similar accident involving the same kind of truck happened almost 10 years ago at the Mount Prospect Road and Northwest Highway intersection, according to Des Plaines fire officials.
In today's accident, Wagner said the driver would have disregarded a "No Left Turn" sign, in addition to the gates and crossing lights. The driver had to cross into the northbound lanes of Mount Prospect Road to get around the northern gate, he said. That left the cab squarely on the tracks as the train blew through the intersection, and the trailer and cab bent like a jacknife, with the trailer hitting the train cars.
Flashing, 41, said the collision felt like "the train was on top of something. It shook terribly, from right to left, like we were going to fall on the tracks. . .I felt we were going to end up on the tracks.
A conductor uses a fire extinguisher on the undercarriage of a Metra train involved in a collision with a truck in Mount Prospect today.
Passengers leave Metra train after it collided with a truck in Mount Prospect this morning
The truck after being struck.
Ariel view.
http://dailyherald.com/article/20110.../AR/#navAnchor
,it was a Texaco fuel tanker,the train clipped the arse end of the trailer,spraying flaming gas on to a car waiting at the tracks on the other side.This car contained my doctors receptionist and her 2 y/o daughter in a child seat in the back,she did it all right/proper/legal,he busts through and her child burns to death.
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