I am proud of the Daily Herald's role. That answered one of the fundamental questions that arose from Wednesday's crash, which killed seven students: Why didn't the bus driver move off the tracks? Bill Kopanda, the vice principal at Cary-Grove at the time, told the Northwest Herald that Oct. 25, 1995, was the worst day of his life. The school bus involved in a crash with a Metra train in Fox River Grove rests in the McHenry County Impound lot near Woodstock in October 1996, one year after the incident. Shes haunted by a drawing Stephanie sketched about a week before she died, a pastel of a set of weeping eyes. Seven high school students were killed and two dozen were injured last week when a commuter train crashed into a school bus at a railroad crossing in Fox River Grove, Ill. One student. Marino quickly laid his twins head on his lap, tipped it back and plucked the gum out of his mouth. Mercifully, I remained blissfully ignorant of the morning crash until about noon. The first one especially rattled him. Fox River Grove bus-train crash remembered 20 years later The changes included creating a standardized system nationwide connecting traffic signals to railroad warning devices, Vercruysse says. opened the door, looked and listened for traffic, and then Both were with Fox River Grove fire back in 1995. Netflix looks to curb password sharing, considers ads, Aiming to predict COVID, future pandemics better, CDC opens infectious diseases forecasting center, Joliet farmers wrangle cows thrown from semitrailer after crash on Interstate 80, Coffee machine broken? Jeffrey Clark, 17. And because officials wanted to preserve buildings in downtown Fox River Grove on the north side of the road, the expansion went southward toward the tracks. I hope thats not the case.. signal," said Goglia. Patricia Catencamp, 54, a substitute driver for the Fox River Grove School System, told the National Transportation Safety Board late Thursday that she stopped the bus before crossing the tracks . I hear stories about the person I was and the person I could have been, he says. She had to flee the room whenever "Runaway" was played. Earlier in the day, Goglia had stood at the crash site as experts used tape measures to gauge the distance between the Chicago and North Western tracks and the white "stop line" on Algonquin Road just short of Northwest Highway. It was the most violent, abrupt thing you can imagine, the time, told the Northwest Herald that Oct. 25, 1995, was the worst day of his life, The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the collision. Her brother, Shaun, should have been on the bus that day but disobeyed his parents and took the car. The person he became is a firefighter-paramedic with the Crystal Lake Fire-Rescue Department, where his brother Brian also works. Her statement is that the light This was in the days before computer-assisted reporting. A total of $27.3 million was paid to the victims; of this amount, the school district paid $16.26 million, as school districts are held responsible for the actions of their drivers. onto route 14.". By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our, Aerosmith announces farewell tour starting in September, Its Met Gala time again heres what we know so far, Rising Mississippi River continuing to test flood defenses in northwest Illinois, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. The 1995 Fox River Grove bus-train collision refers to a grade crossing accident that killed seven students riding aboard a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois on the morning of October 25, 1995. Later, two more succumbed to their injuries. Community High School District 155 and Crystal Lake School District 47, which shared supervision over the bus system, failed to adequately prepare drivers with information about hazards along the routes, the report also concluded. The first time he made the run through the crash site, he asked to have an engineer friend with him in the cab. You just handle situations.". He keeps at it because the bus isnt moving. A month before the deadly collision, another train had sheared the bumper off a pickup truck whose back end hadnt made it fully over the tracks. All times are approximate, given in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report as the best approximation of when the events occurred as a result of their investigation. The rear of the bus hung over the railway grade crossing. His boss told him to take off as much time as he needed. Thats the point in the dream when he always wakes up, shaking, just before the impact. Katie Krebeck was 14, and she and her friends agreed to sit behind the substitute driver to help her navigate the unfamiliar route toward Cary-Grove High School. Kimberly Schneider waits for word about her daughter, Tiffany, after Metra train No. Man dead after car crashes into utility pole, 2 trees then catches fire Hed been heading for the back but was pulled into the seat by two friends. Informational decals were also added to Illinois school buses advising drivers of the length of each bus, since the substitute school bus driver was apparently unaware of the exact length of the bus she was driving. The crash killed seven teenagers and injured the bus driver and 24 passengers. There were reports of injuries. That was the day of the Fox River Grove school bus-Metra train collusion. Five students died in the crash Wednesday and two more were Breathe!". But he figured the longer he stayed away, the harder it would be to get back in the cab. There were so many reasons I should have died that day, he says. Advise members to disable radio speakers located next to drivers' heads. Its like when you crest on a roller coaster, and youre going down, and your breath is taken away.. In the runup to the 2024 election, the Sun-Times, WBEZ and the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago will be collaborating on a project to educate our audience about the threat to our democracy and how we can form a more perfect union., 25 years later, Fox River Grove Metra-school bus crash still haunts engineer, other survivors. Joseph A. "Joe/Beef" Kalte (1979-1995) - Find a Grave Memorial Shes an amazing woman.. Students on the bus said after the accident that their usual driver always stopped before he reached the tracks and waited for the light ahead of him to turn green before he crossed them. "Until I was at the hospital watching the news, I didn't know what had happened.". A train and bus collided on Jan. 24, 1991, claiming one life. Grieving Town Buries Bus Crash Victim SARAH NORDGREN October 27, 1995 FOX RIVER GROVE, Ill. (AP) _ Dazed teen-agers wearing team jackets hugged and wept under a gray sky Friday as they buried the first of seven students killed when a commuter train smashed into their school bus. Michael Lucas, one of the survivors, will be there even though his memory of what happened the morning of Oct. 25, 1995, was taken by the crash along with 14 years of his past. The crash killed seven teenagers and injured the bus driver and 24 passengers. The space was just too tight to safely accommodate the 38-foot-4-inch bus. The train is now 2,300ft (701m) from the crossing. Timing of the safety system was not the only problem that federal investigators found. Ten years later - School Bus Fleet Magazine Forums 5 Killed as Commuter Train Hits School Bus - New York Times The crossing was of inherently dangerous design, in that a long vehicle could be partially trapped on the crossing while held by a red light at the intersection. Her grades dropped, and she eventually chose to drop out of school and get a GED. Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. Metra Express #624 departed Crystal Lake Station bound for Chicago at . 7 Students Die in Ill. Train-Bus Crash - Education Week IDOT traffic engineers responsible for establishing signal timings should have recognized that in this particular case, resting in "WALK" carries substantial risk and virtually no benefit, and should not have allowed the traffic signal to rest in the pedestrian "WALK" interval. The guardrail went down on the back of the bus, a Metra engineer blared his horn and those sitting in the back of the bus tried to rush to the front but it was too late. That suggests that Catencamp may have been able to avoid the crash if she had only pulled up as far as possible, although officials said state law requires school bus drivers to stop at the painted white line. Transportation Department spokesman Dick Adorjan said the The regular driver later said that when the bus was running on schedule, she did not usually have to contend with trains at that intersection. Train slams into Illinois school bus; "It made me appreciate things a little more, be more cautious about my surroundings," Burriss said. And I didnt.. After his death, there was a reception and luncheon at Galatis Pizza & Pasta in Cary. Over the next week, there were seven funerals. Twenty-five years ago Sunday, Ford Dotson Jr.s train smashed into a school bus in Fox River Grove. If youre in a pinch and lack a coffee machine and a grinder, you can try making whats called cowboy coffee. This might not be the tastiest cup of joe, but itll certainly get the job done. "This has been on our most-wanted list." The weather at the bus stop that autumn morning was biting cold, and it didn't help that the driver was running about 20 minutes late. Review the information with both regular and substitute bus drivers regularly. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that, while the bus driver was not aware that a portion of the bus was on the tracks as she should have been, the timing of signals was so insufficient that, even if she had identified the hazard as the train approached, she would have had to proceed against a red traffic signal into the highway intersection to have moved out of the train's path. A school bus full of kids had been hit by a train in a northwest suburb of Chicago. Police said Donald Cochran, 41, from Grove City, was driving northbound when he failed to . On this particular route, bus drivers on Algonquin Road had been known to cross the tracks to stop at the line at Northwest Highway, leaving them vulnerable to passing trains if they happened to still be stopped when the gates lowered. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. IDOT officials said they must be located 12 feet from the track, and motorists are required to stop at a flashing signal or gate no closer than 15 feet from the nearest rail. Most in McHenry County and Chicago area already know the details surrounding the tragic day and the crash, which ended up being one of the worst school bus collisions in the U.S. A National Traffic Safety Board investigation followed the tragedy, as did new protocols and policies surrounding rail crossings. Breathe! And somehow he did. In addition, vehicle sensors were only present on the north side of the railroad tracks. Goglia said measurements are being studied, but it appeared signal that turned the light green to allow vehicles trapped His mother, so many years later, will often ask, Mikey, do you remember when you were little, and you used to do this ?. NEVER HEARD TRAIN, BUS DRIVER REVEALS - Chicago Tribune Seven teenagers, all of them students at Cary- Grove High School, were killed: Jeffrey Clark, Stephanie Fulham, Susanna Guzman, Michael Hoffman, Joe Kalte, Shawn Robinson and Tiffany Schneider. In 1995, National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia told AP that even if the driver had seen the train, she would have had little time to react. No one needs those kinds of memories, she says. The Illinois Secretary of State's office said the driver, It was the most violent, abrupt thing you can imagine, Marino told the Chicago Sun-Times as he recalled the Oct. 25, 1995, collision. The light is going to change. Metra Train No. Moms crying out, dropping to their knees and begging God not to let it be their kid, is how Bob Kreher, the departments fire chief then and now, remembers it. (793K QuickTime animation), Goglia said the NTSB has interviewed the driver of the bus. Because passengers waiting to board trains need the amenities of a station more than departing riders-who tend to alight and leave-the C&NW adopted a left-hand operation. To the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Determine what effect sound attenuation materials in buses have on the ability of the bus driver to discern both internal and external audible warnings. The family created the Jeff Clark Spirit Award that awards several Scouts every year with a $100 savings bond or summer camp tuition. The memorial, called The Circle of Friends, features thirty-six stones to represent the passengers and driver of the bus and seven blue spruce trees to commemorate those who died.[12]. Identical twin brothers Michael Lucas (left) and Brian Marino survived the 1995 Fox River Grove bus/train collision that took the lives of seven fellow students. The dream that has visited Ford Dotson Jr. thousands of times always starts the same way. At that time, I had been the state director, for North Carolina for just a few months and didn't truly realize the impact that this . The bus-train collision in Fox River Grove, two decades ago Sunday, remains among the deadliest rail crossing crashes in U.S. history. On October 25, 1995 at 7:10 am, Metra train number 624 collided with the back of a school bus carrying students to Cary-Grove High School. Prothero was unfamiliar with this bus, and mistook the low air pressure warning (for the air brakes) for a warning of low engine oil pressure. An accident 20 years ago on Sunday shook the town of Fox River Grove. To the Federal Railroad Administration: Update the national Highway-Rail Crossing inventory. The 200-ton locomotive at the rear of the train pushes six passenger cars and the cab control car. "It was the first time I experienced a death. These recommendations are summarized as follows: To the U.S. Secretary of Transportation: Develop a safety inspection program for railroad crossings that involve other public entities (schools and other state departments). The driver of the Fox River Grove school bus hit by an express commuter train said she never heard the warnings of her passengers, never saw the train coming and never heard the wail of its whistle, federal investigators said Thursday. As Dotsons 7 a.m. train from Crystal Lake, with 120 passengers and three crew members, headed down the tracks toward the Algonquin crossing that day 25 years ago, Brian Marino, a Cary-Grove High School freshman, was delighted.