O'Hare Station Train Crash on:
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On March 24, 2014, a
Following the accident, the line between O'Hare and was closed, with a replacement bus service in place. A CTA spokesman initially stated that the line could be closed for as long as 48 hours while recovery of the train was undertaken. This was later revised upwards to a week. The front two cars of the train were damaged in the accident. Damage was estimated at $6,000,000. On March 26, work began to scrap the lead car on site. The derailed train was removed from the station on March 27. The station reopened on March 30, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. The escalator damaged in the crash was replaced by stairs. Damage amounted to $11,196,796.
Chicago Transit Authority
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its surrounding suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago 'L' and CTA bus service. In , the system had a ridership of , ...
(CTA) passenger train overran the bumper at O'Hare station, injuring 34 people.
Accident
At 2:50 a.m.local time
Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...
(07:50 UTC) on March 24th 2014, a passenger train overran the bumper at . The front car of the eight-car train partially ascended an escalator. While a spokesman initially stated that it was likely that the train entered the station at too high a speed, later estimates indicated that the train entered the station at , which was not an excessive speed. At least 50 firefighters and paramedic
A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research.
Not all ambulance personnel are p ...
s responded to the accident. Thirty-four people were injured. They were taken to the Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, the Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, the Resurrection Hospital and the Swedish Covenant Hospital.
Following the accident, the line between O'Hare and was closed, with a replacement bus service in place. A CTA spokesman initially stated that the line could be closed for as long as 48 hours while recovery of the train was undertaken. This was later revised upwards to a week. The front two cars of the train were damaged in the accident. Damage was estimated at $6,000,000. On March 26, work began to scrap the lead car on site. The derailed train was removed from the station on March 27. The station reopened on March 30, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. The escalator damaged in the crash was replaced by stairs. Damage amounted to $11,196,796.
Train
Photographs show that the train involved in the accident was made up of four two-car 2600-series trainsets, with 3061/3062 as the leading pair.Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened an investigation into the accident. Investigators focused on the theory that the motorwoman, 25-year-old Brittney Tysheka Haywood, fell asleep at the controls. She stated that she had recently performed "a lot of overtime". When interviewed by the NTSB, she admitted falling asleep at the controls and disclosed that she had done a similar thing the previous month, which resulted in an overshoot at (Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
) on February 1. She did not reveal to CTA that she had fallen asleep when questioned about the overshoot. The investigation was hampered by the train's lack of a train event recorder
A train event recorder – also called On-Train Monitoring Recorder (OTMR), On-Train Data Recorder (OTDR), Event Recorder System (ERS), Event Recorder Unit (ERU), or simply Event Recorder (ER) – is a device that records data about the operatio ...
, although it was fitted with a video camera. The recording from the camera was examined. Images from 41 cameras within the station were also studied. The NTSB's report ultimately confirmed the original findings.
Aftermath
As a direct consequence of the accident, the CTA reduced the speed limit into the O'Hare station from to . The area of the speed limit was also extended away from the station. The train operator was fired.References
External links
* * {{Chicago L , state=autocollapse 2014 disasters in the United States Railway accidents and incidents in Illinois Railway accidents in 2014 O'Hare International Airport 2014 in Illinois Accidents and incidents involving Chicago Transit Authority March 2014 events in the United States