Last week I provided a link to the National Transportation Safety Board report on 2001 accident where a Brown Line train ran into the rear of a standing Purple Line train. Taht prompted a reader to write his firsthand accoutn of being on the Purple Line that was struck. Thanks for sharing, Russ!
I have been a fan of your site since I saw it mentioned in the Trib’s RedEye, and I want to thank you for the link you provided to the NTSB with respect to the 8/3/01 El collision on the Brown and Purple Line. I was on the Purple Line train #505 hit that day, I think the fourth car back, and was among the uninjured. I have always wondered the speed at which we were hit, but never followed up on exploring it. I remember in the news, the NTSB rebuking the CTA’s initial public statement that the collision was at less than 5 MPH, and the CTA’s subsequent revision of their statement to 5-15 MPH accordingly.
Final verdict: 11 MPH. The NTSB’s assessment that in spite of the 300+ foot visibility from the train that hit us, and of the 31 feet they calculated it would have taken to bring that train to a stop, and of the brakes not being applied until 1.5 seconds before the collision were surprising revelations. And the operator tested negative for drugs and alcohol. I wonder if he also tested negative for having at least the intellect of a tumbleweed.
I would like to provide a detailed firsthand account of that experience. Our train had started to move slowly after having come to a stop midway between Sedgwick and Chicago, right over the taxicab corral on the right. I remember this because after the collision, I was ridiculing in my mind some genius next to me who was speculating with someone whether we hit something or were hit from behind: “Wait, but wouldn’t you go forward?” (DUH, DUH, DUH) I was standing in the aisle, facing the doors, my left hand holding the rear pole of the left forward vestibule. I had a firm grip on the pole, even though the train was barely moving. I’ve seen too many tourists, drunk fellow Cub fans, and yes, just sober native idiots stumble or fall when the train lunges abruptly.
Loud bang, I was thrown rearward to full extension of my arm, but reflexively tightened my grip and did not fall. I was the only aisle passenger in my car still standing. Everyone else standing who did not have a place to fall, i.e., in the vestibule or against the rear door, was on top of another. I know of a guy at work who was on that train whose foot was fractured because someone fell on it.
I went to the forward door between cars, to make a cellphone call to my supervisor to explain in a little more quiet privacy what had happened, and asking that she explain to people who were expecting me at an important meeting that I would be late and had no idea when they’d get us off this thing. Couldn’t do it. The impact buckled the threshold of that door, so that it didn’t open. Then I saw the spiderweb pattern in the window of the rear door of the next-front car, right about head-level of someone of my six-foot height. So I made the call in the car, describing these details. It is interesting after these years seeing what I told my boss corroborated in the NTSB report.
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