CHICAGO - Two Metra Trains Derailed or Crashed within 24 Hrs.

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Title: L derails; Metra has 2 crashes

May 13, 2000

BY ROBERT C. HERGUTH TRANSPORTATION REPORTER

Commuters got quite a scare when a CTA train and two Metra trains derailed or crashed within 24 hours.

Two CTA L cars derailed late Thursday on the West Side, injuring three people and snarling service into Friday morning. Then Metra trains hit a truck and a car in separate incidents Friday; no passengers were injured, but several people were hurt in the car accident.

About 25 people were on the four-car CTA train when the wheels of the last two cars left the track between the Western and Medical Center stops along the Blue Line's Congress Branch, which stretches between Chicago and Forest Park along the Eisenhower Expy.

Three people suffered minor injuries. They were treated at local hospitals, CTA spokeswoman Maria Toscano said.

The L train did not flip over, but the 10:25 p.m. incident required that part of the line be closed until 4:40 a.m. Friday, she said. During that time, passengers were put on buses and shuttled between Kedzie and Racine.

The CTA could not immediately provide figures on the number of derailments in recent years.

The Metra accidents happened Friday afternoon at 95th and Cicero, where a train struck a semitrailer that was parked on the tracks, and on the Rock Island Line at 89th and Ashland, when a traffic accident left a car on the tracks.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/rail13.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 13, 2000


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