Chicago train jumps tracks, climbs escalator, injures dozens

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A potentially catastrophic episode was averted in the Second City when an eight-car Chicago commuter train plowed across a platform and scaled an escalator at an underground station at the nation’s second busiest airport (behind Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson) early Monday, injuring 32 people on board, officials said.

No one suffered life-threatening injuries in the Blue Line derailment at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, officials said at a news conference.

Injuries and fatalities would have been significantly higher if not for the timing of the crash that occurred at about 3 a.m. The bustling station is usually packed with travelers making their way to or from Chicago from the major airport and the train would have plowed through and over dozens of passengers.


A passenger on the train told the Chicago Sun-Times she heard a loud noise during the impact.

“We will be looking at equipment. We will be looking at signals. We’ll be looking at the human factor and any extenuating circumstances,” CTA spokesman Brian Steele told the Associated Press, “but really at this point; it’s far too soon to speculate.”


Transit agency officials said crews were working to remove the train and fix the escalator, which received “significant damage.” Hours after the crash, the front of the first car could still be seen near the top of the escalator, reported the Chicago Tribune.

Christopher Bushell, CTA’s chief infrastructure officer, said it would likely be at least 12 to 24 hours before the station would reopen. He said workers will cut the train apart and remove it in pieces on a flatbed. The CTA was busing passengers to and from O’Hare to the next station on the line.

The train appeared to have been going too fast as it approached the end-of-line station and didn’t stop at a bumping post — a metal shock absorber at the end of the tracks.

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