100 Injured in METRA Derailment

Chicago Passenger Train Derails, Up to 100 Injured
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A local passenger train derailed in downtown Chicago on Sunday, injuring up to 100 people, railroad and fire officials said. Almost all the injuries were minor.

The train, which was carrying about 300 passengers, derailed at about 4:40 p.m. Central Time a few miles south of a downtown station, Metra spokesman Dan Schnolis said. The two locomotives and five passenger cars all left the tracks, he said.

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Continuing story can be found here.

AP Photos can be found here and here.

Sunday Train Derailment Delays Monday Commute
45 People Injured During Accident On South Side

Federal investigators were at the scene Monday morning of a Metra train derailment that injured dozens of people Sunday and service was still disrupted because of ongoing repair to the tracks.

Five people remained hospitalized with their injuries Monday morning, and one of them was in critical condition. Most of the other injuries were minor, investigators said.

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For full story and video clip from NBC 5 Chicago click here.

Ouch. It looks like at least one of the derailed engines was a new MPI 36. That's a shame for such a new engine to be damaged so early in its life.

battalion51 said:

Ouch. It looks like at least one of the derailed engines was a new MPI 36. That's a shame for such a new engine to be damaged so early in its life.

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From things that I've heard both engines were brand new. One may very well be totaled, as it landed on it's side and caught fire. The other at the very least has some damage, even though it remained upright.

Looks like both engine were the new ones from the looks of one of them it looks like a probable write-off, the 2d one could be repairable.

All I'll say is shades of 819.

battalion51 said:

All I'll say is shades of 819.

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Fortunately not nearly as tragic. :unsure:

True, true.

Still another story from the Chicago Tribune can be found here.

This story however is accompanied by a photo gallery of 9 pictures, that clearly show some of the severe damage done to the engines.

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Thanks for the link Alan. I showed them, gave them a fake name (a la Simpsons), Birth Year, and the Wrong Zip code. :lol:

Viewliner said:

Thanks for the link Alan. I showed them, gave them a fake name (a la Simpsons), Birth Year, and the Wrong Zip code. :lol:

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Oh NO!

Now you've totally screwed up their statistics. :lol: Like I really care.

Its a shame to see that one of their new engines was involved. If they had to have an engine damaged, they have more then enough F40's. Oh well

Collect that insurance money $$$. The guys at Boise Locomotive can't be feeling to good to see their work be destroyed just after it was completed.

AMTRAK-P42 said:

Its a shame to see that one of their new engines was involved. If they had to have an engine damaged, they have more then enough F40's. Oh well

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Not one, but two new engines were involved. One I'm sure is heavily damaged, having fallen on it's side and also having suffered fire damage. The other sustained at least moderate damage, although estimates are still not in.

All in all not a good thing.

Thankfully however, as Viewliner intimated, no lives were lost in this derailment and most injuries were minor. Equipment can be rebuilt, repaired, or replaced. People can't.

Another question Alan might know the answer to having done the Windy City Fest.

How many cars are normally on those Rock Island District trains to cause them to need two locomotives or is there some other reason positioning move, etc.?

Seems to me that I recall maybe 5 or 6 six cars, but it should be noted that I was riding at off peak times.

So I'm not quite sure why they had two, although I seem to recall seeing other trains with two locos. Perhaps it's a backup program, since these engines are still rather new. They may want the extra power should one fail.

I can't remember where I read this, but I believe that federal regulations require new engines to be run with a second engine for something like 1,000 miles before they can be run solo. Once the engines reach the required number of miles, then they can be sent out on their own.

Both of your answers make a lot of sense, thanks.

Well at least preliminarily, it look like the engineer has got some explaining to do. Seems he was going in excess of 60 MPH while trying to take a switch rated for 10 MPH.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board planned to interview the train's engineer this morning to get a clearer understanding of why the train was traveling so fast--60 mph instead of 10 mph--as it made a planned track change just past 47th Street. The derailment sent more than 40 people to hospitals and continues to snarl service on the Rock Island District Line.
"I'll tell you right now, it was going faster than 10 mph," said Jim Remines, an investigator with the safety agency. "We're going to go with 60 mph."

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You can read the full story here from the Chicago Sun Times.

During the derailment, all five passenger cars left the track; several tilted, but none tipped. Both locomotives -- each a brand new, $3 million model -- left the tracks, and one flipped and caught fire.

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According to one very reliable poster over on OTOL, the above engine that flipped was number 411. It also appears that as I suspected, this motor is beyond repair.

You can read his comments by clicking here and rolling down to the second post on the page.

Well at least preliminarily, it look like the engineer has got some explaining to do. Seems he was going in excess of 60 MPH while trying to take a switch rated for 10 MPH.

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Now I thought locomotives automatically go into an emergancy stop if the engineer is exceeding the speed limit? Unleast that's how it is in Microsoft Train Simulator.

Amfleet said:

Well at least preliminarily, it look like the engineer has got some explaining to do. Seems he was going in excess of 60 MPH while trying to take a switch rated for 10 MPH.

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Now I thought locomotives automatically go into an emergancy stop if the engineer is exceeding the speed limit? Unleast that's how it is in Microsoft Train Simulator.

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Only if the track and the engine are equiped with some sort of Automatic Traffic Control (ATC) or Positive Train Control (PTC) or similar cousin. Most RR's outside of the NEC don't have PTC, so it's really up to the engineer to read the signals and his form D's properly.

From reports in other places it appears as though 411 will probably be written off. 409 was the lead unit. A couple of METRA engineers post in the METRA forum on Railroad.net and they have a decent topic going on relating to the subjet that can be found here. Says something for the FRA's new crashworthiness standards that the engineer involved survived the derailment. According to other sources many believe that if the power involved were any of METRA's other road power the engineer would not have survived.

Of course my interest will peak after the NTSB makes completes their investigation as I will be looking at the litigation angle arising from the derailment, especially if this is due to negligence on the part of the engineer.