A Simple Oversight: The Fox River Grove Bus-Train Crash 1995 | Short Documentary | Plainly Difficult
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- On the morning of October 25, 1995, a school bus, driven by a substitute driver, was stopped at a traffic light with the rearmost portion extending onto a portion of the railroad tracks, this would result in the bus being hit by a train in Fox river grove Illinois.
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RIP 2 DA students
U should do a story on e2 club in Chicago
Being from Illinois, this is both horrifying to remember bits I've heard over the years and also just the way you pronounce everything feels almost right
You could do review of Smederevo fortress explosion, for those who don't know: " After capitulation of Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 17th April 1941, German began to stock all ammunition and gasoline from Yugoslav army in Smederevo fortress (located in Smederevo town in modern day Serbia), German garrison troops became reckless (smoking in front of powder, practice shooting...), not surprising sever small scale explosion did happen and Germans realized that they need to move ammunition away but process was never completed, at 14:14 (2:14 PM) 5th June 1941, series of massive explosions (German made report how many explosion material was stocked: 374 tons of TNT (German Trinitro-Toluol) in barrels, 2800 tons of ammunition of all kinds with 172 tons of explosives and powder and 425,000 detonators along side of bigger amount gasoline), that killed and wounded over 4500 people and hundred of building completely destroyed, fortress mangled with massive crater , even today you can see concequnces of that explosion. That explosion is on equivalent to Halifax explosion or even bigger but don't get enough attention to history books.
they should put up signs that say DANGER attempts at seeing a moving train up close , can be deadly
As a locomotive engineer, this accident is nightmare fuel.
I used to drive shuttle for rail crews out of Mobile, AL. I had many wonderful conversations with you guys. All of you that I met were so intelligent! And yes, I asked the hard question...every man had been touched by someone or something across the rails in front of them. Be safe out there, Brother!
Burn the brakes burn the engine and throw the anchor out of the window
Hey dude, just be on the ball and do what you can. Do things right, don't make stupid mistakes and you will be ok. From a firefighter, shlt happens and try as we might people get hurt.
Just because your driving, does not make someone elses decisions or actions your responsibility. They can live with you but its up to you if you take on their decisions as your moral responsibility.
Do your job, do it right.... its all we can all do. Good luck!
Agreed they want to put some of the blame on the bus driver here, but ANY long vehicle is an issue when the junction box isn't long enough. Any lorry (truck) might STALL or suffer some mechanical issue and then, though the driver might have been right on the ball to move off instantly, accident! It's the bad junction at fault here not really any driver. Accident waiting to happen here, inevitable.
especially with how long it takes for a train to come to a full stop
I’m from Northern Illinois and remember this accident like it was yesterday. Initially the driver got a lot of the blame, but she was put in a difficult situation-the crossing was just a disaster waiting to happen. As for the kids yelling for her to move, she was confused, she just thought the kids were acting rowdy. It was only a few seconds from when the gate lowered to when the train hit, so she wasn’t able to process what they were shouting. Ironically, had she ignored the kids (like a more seasoned driver might have), she would have seen the light turn green and the accident might have been avoided. The accident was 100% caused by the poorly designed crossing. A bus should have been able to clear the tracks, and it shouldn’t be down to a substitute driver and shouting kids to overcome a fatal design.
That's right, when people don't think things through, have poor reaction time, and absolutely no ability to handle a stressful situation, it's entirely up to the world to be safe for them! 100%!
@@Inumuro yes, that's 100% right! Crap human factors and shit design are never at fault! Never blame the authorities when you can scapegoat some hapless schlub!
I was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. I was about 9 when this happened. I live in Mount Prospect, and I wasn't close enough that I knew anyone involved, but it was brought up when we had our bus safety drill that year. My parents moved to Cary a few years ago. For a time, the route I took to visit them took me right past the intersection where the accident happened. I always looked out for the memorial as I passed.
As someone who had to ride plenty of noisy school buses, I could imagine it was probably hard to hear what the kids were shouting unless they were clear and mostly in unison. Some kid could've been stabbing another kid in the back of the bus, so it's a logical instinct to want to check and make sure that isn't happening, if you don't know what the commotion is about. Given that there were at least 20 other incidents with this same intersection, I would say that yes, certain aspects of the world do need to be designed more safely. Not everyone has superhero reaction time or 24/7 perfect thoughts. Safe urban planning is not too much to expect from a city, it should come standard.
@@Inumuro Generally speaking, most people don't expect to be hit by a train at a stop light after having gone over the railroad crossing.
The junction was poorly designed, and a better junction would've made this scenario outright impossible. While some blame rests on the driver, the appearance of a driver who would make this mistake was essentially guaranteed. First time on a route, loud bus, terrible junction.
I’m actually from Fox River Grove! I wasn’t born until after the accident but I learned a lot about it from my teachers and parents. I always thought it was weird how the bus drivers always stopped before the tracks. We had bus evacuation drills and I wasn’t sure why the teachers always took them so seriously, but as I got older and learned about the accident I realized why they were so strict about bus safety
Yes, but those actions wouldn't have actually prevented this. It's security theater
@@pepperypeppers2755 nope. PER the NTSB safety report, which is easily and freely accessible online, they specify the degree of injury to students sitting in specific seat rows, specify which seats students who had stood and begun moving forward had occupied, and also the degree of injury suffered by those specific students who HAD moved forward.
MOST of those seated in rows with severe injuries who had moved forward suffered less severe injury. For example, there are at least two separate children I see at a glance were seated *directly* next to a fatality but who got out of their seat and moved forward, and suffered only minor injuries. It's NOT security theater.
Not everything you personally think seems stupid, and therefore declare to be "security theater," IS actually stupid security theater.
I do like your username though
Same here but cary. Cg or Barrington?
@@jayyydizzzle
CG here.
@@merlinious01 Marengo here
I live in Illinois, and ever since this accident it's legally required that all busses stop at the tracks of a crossing to open their door and physically listen for whether there is a train approaching. This was obviously of huge impact to myself and all the other kids around here at the time.
I drove one in 1985 when I was 16 in NC. We had to open the door and window before crossing tracks.
@@Lemmon714_ wish we had thought of it that early around here.
probably would not have helped in this situation. The train would have been very distant when she arrived at the tracks. Don't forget that an entire traffic light sequence completed before the train arrived
We have that law in NY too. Now I know why!
thats a stupid rule. what if the bus driver has poor hearing or the train is quiet. So stupid.
I live in a town with a lot of train crossings and I’ve seen so many close calls. It’s really terrifying how careless people are around railroad tracks and crossings considering how preventable accidents there are.
I know what you mean, being from a town that also has a lot of train crossings. From what I have seen, some people just see the tracks as a less annoying speed bump.
@@TheAbyssalStorm i think a lot of it these days, and i've had these thoughts myself so I'm part of the problem, but
there's just not as much train traffic these days, crossings HAVE been reduced to annoying bumps in some areas where trains just don't run anymore
might be a Michigan thing since most tracks seem to have their endpoints here, especially the ones leading from the mining industries, i dunno how active trains are in the rest of the country, but around here people generally tend to ignore inactive crossings, active crossings are viewed as a nuisance, this probably isn't a good thing
I used to live near a very busy inner city level crossing and it was some wild times that's for sure. Trains never really went much faster than a few km/h as it approached a station right next to it but it would get some express service that just blasted right though at 80km/h once in a while. So yep, more than a few drunks decided that dinging and red light just meant stumble quicker and didn't make it along with an endless stream of impatient drivers that got to meet the Superbonker Express first hand.
Weirdly, I don't think many people got killed, the odd walk with a limp and shit in a bag for life kinds of injuries and a few cars that got dragged a hundred metres or so.
Some people just can't think past the rules. Some call this being DEAD RIGHT! When a train is coming you cross the road, because a possible collision with a 2k lb car will cause less damage than a certain collision with a train. Evin if the DOT and School were negligent, they were in no position to prevent the collision.
I have a very similar junction on my way to school shown in the video that up until recently just had a stop sign. It's right next to the school parking lot so many inexperienced high school drivers go through it every day. It's crazy how many times I saw people stop on the tracks and even at one point when the crossing seemed not to be going up cars just started going around the barriers, it baffles me how people don't understand the dangers present in that kind of situation.
I also feel bad for the train operator, imagine barreling down on a school bus and there’s nothing you can do.. 😰
The dilemma all train drivers face. Everyone would have had at least one of these moments at the point they retired. They all suffered some level of PTSD.
@@TUXmint oh my gosh…I’m so sorry you had to experienced that 😰
sound the horn A LOT earlier?
@@rabidbeaver167 My thinking on this, after watching the video, is that she heard the horn but didn’t realize she was actually in the path of the train until it was too late. Trains always sound their horn coming to a crossing so it wouldn’t have caused anyone to interpret the horn as “you are literally on the tracks.”
@@stephanieparker1250 Seems pretty obvious that they should have two different sounding horns. One for normal operation and a second emergency one of a different sound.
Two brothers on this bus crash were gravely injured (one was even listed as black, which means dead in mass casualty triage) but survived and later became paramedics. They are twins and my mom worked with them. Michael and Brian are amazing men who worked with my mom and I love them so much. They basically watched me grow up. I haven’t seen them in a long time but the last time I did Brian had just had a daughter with his wife. This crash inspired them to be paramedics.
They were volunteer firefighters and training to be paramedics before this. One of them saved the other's life, thanks to their training.
I was bike riding and stopped for a coming train, I was about as far back as I would be in a car but the noise and rumbling of the ground sent me in retreat. It was a completely different experience than being in a vehicle. A even bigger respect for the size and danger of a train.
Yep...and there's other risks too, its infrequent but sometimes a strap or load comes loose and the crew may be unaware that it's flying along like a knife part way back. Not ideal for a car but WAY worse for a pedestrian or biker if they are within the striking zone.
@@matthewmiller6068 good point, we had a bunch of grass fires along the train tracks that was blamed on a chain being dragged and sparking fires during our then drought
I worked at a warehouse where we had a built in railstation for shipping. Feeling the ground shift beneath your feet as a train goes by mere feet away really drives home the sense of power and weight they're really moving.
@@BootScoot agreed, it sounded like a scene from Jurassic Park
This exact thing happened to the school bus I was riding in 1980. We had a substitute driver who stopped at a railroad crossing but the last few inches were on the track & a train hit us. No one died but several were taken to the hospital. I just had bumps & bruises & glass all over me. It was in Fayette County, GA.
Scary! Hadn't heard of it but moved to Georgia in 1981. Oddly, I came from college in Chicago but had lived about 30 miles from the above accident. Cue spooky music 😮
Where at in Fayette County, I frequent that area quiet often
@@amtraklover In 1980, Hwy 74 went straight through Tyrone. The crossing was Hwy 74 and East Crestwood, turning off the highway. The road crosses the track & immediately turns right. She stopped just before the turn to let a girl off and didn't clear the tracks.
@susan stedman oh my gosh thats horrifying to know that happened in Tyrone, im glad no one was killed
Female driver or male? I'm collecting data.
My dad used to drive school buses, and we have some areas like the one in this video. My dad takes railroads seriously (almost paranoia level), so he pulls more forward. The nose might annoy drivers, but it's better than having the butt too close to the tracks. And he didn't mind ignoring students (often he had the "troubled" kids) long enough to get somewhere safer. Distractions are such a hazard for bus drivers.
You can't ignore the kids if they're screaming about there being a fire or some other danger though?
@@Roadent1241 Fake bomb threats and guns are a staple with the troubled kids, especially at busy intersections. Even regular kids often scream and prank. But road hazards are always real, and drivers are foremost expected to drive safely. Find a place to pull over calmly first. Most bus accidents are not from anything unusual, but like with other vehicular incidents--the driver got distracted.
@@Roadent1241 kids yelled and screamed all the time. My bus didn't have an assistant so it was just the driver and us kids, I'd literally hear them "I bet 5$ I can get Mrs. X to yell my name" "Nah man I bet 7 that I can get her to stop the bus and come back here" distracting the driver was a game to them
@@Roadent1241 They scream and "cry wolf" all the time
@@peregrination3643 Oh yeah I've just remembered my mother used to drive my school bus when I was in middle school, and we're British so we didn't have threats like that. But yeah they can be noisy for no reason.
She took no crap. Made everybody be home late early on in the job because she would pull over (country roads so barely any cars ever) everytime they acted up so they learned.
I actually grew up in Fox River Grove! My mother told me a few times that she'd actually seen the accident when it happened. She was across the way at one of the little shops and was going out to her car when it hit. She THOUGHT my brother was on the bus, because he was suppose to be, but he'd missed it for some reason that morning. It triggered such a bad panic attack in her that the paramedics had to see to her too.
The incident definitively left a mark on the town, especially since it wasn't the only train accident that'd happened in the town with terrible deaths. The little brother of a friend of mine actually died at the other train crossing in town on his bike-he had headphones in and thought the train had passed-except there was a second train. The whole town is train cursed, I'm convinced.
My dad lost his friend in this crash, he was a kid and worked with him the day before, then he had to stand at his funeral not even a week later, he said it was a formative experience but I wish he didn't have to go through that
I feel so bad for the kids on that bus. They must've been terrified. Can you imagine seeing a train coming straight towards you and screaming at the driver to pull forward, but your yelling only making her wait longer?
I wonder if kids tried running to the front of the bus
The gut reaction is to blame her, but once you think about it, it 100% wasn't her fault. She stopped where she was marked to stop, so she assumed rightfully that the bus was clear. After all, she was only 2 inches over the track, but the train stuck out a couple feet. So even if she did check her mirrors, it wouldn't have been easy to spot. Then think back to riding the bus as a kid. I guarantee all those kids were screaming different things while the train must have been blasting its horn. Then, on top of that, you hear a crashing sound (the gate hitting the bus) and wonder what that was.
All this happened in what 25-30 seconds. She was doomed. She had every right to feel safe stopping where the road told her to stop. It was a complete breakdown of the system.
@@Dan55888some of them did, and lived.
@@Mantis_Toboggan_TrashMan Yeah, I'd like to question the muppet that put traffic lights so close to just after a railway crossing. That's just asking for a disaster. If not one like this, one where a car gets sandwiched between two others, then stuck between the barriers. Good lord.
@@AlphaGargit was explained that this was the result of an Ongoing expansion of the highway there was a lack of foresight but this was a hard disaster to predict ngl
I remember this accident, I had just turned nine years old, this caused major concerned for our school district, even though we were as far away as Ottawa, still caused parents to grow worried about trains crashing into school buses. For a while, my mother would drive me to school, she didn't trust the school buses at railroad crossings, the school district had to make assurances for parents, and formed new rules for buses at railroad crossings.
Ayeee I grew up in the Ottawa area too, and I vaguely remember hearing about it too, even years later in like, the early 2000s! Buses on the track of railroad crossings were one of the examples for the escape plan/bus safety drills we had to do in my elementary school lol
I remember it... out in Alberta...
I know what your talking about, the panic was real and lasting. I was too young to be in school when it happened, but both my parents had jobs as bus drivers a few years later and this was still clear in everyone’s minds. It was mentioned in all their training videos and company meetings and there were signs everywhere. For my entire childhood, I genuinely believed the school buses greatest enemy was the train; and as a grown up, it’s incredible to see kids these days don’t have the same experience or fears.
Ya I think alot of school districts require busses to stop at any railroad crossing and make sure there's no train even if the rails aren't frequently used
613 gang!
You should take a look at a similar accident from 1992-ish hungary, the Pörböly accident, where a bus of unfortunately again, school children was tranpled by a train. Causes of that accident was the not working railroad lights(the batteries were stolen) and the carelesness of the bus driver. My father was almost on that train on that faithful day. And unfortunately i know the forensic detective who went to the scene…😢😢
Thank you for the suggestion!
@@PlainlyDifficult
That would be a great subject to cover. Not great it happened, but interesting. Batteries stolen! Wow.
Also the train driver was accused of negligence and sent to 3 years in prison, because he should have crossed the junction at 15 km/h, but instead he was travelling at 78 km/h. Influenced by this tragedy railway crossing signals in Hungary have to operate by unique type of batteries that cannot be used for other purposes.
@@timtripp4222 I have friends in South Africa, where infrastructure equipment like that sort of battery are stolen regularly.
... please tell me someone had the brilliant idea to do the most obvious fix for this and make it so the crossing arms fail _closed_ if nothing else, because if they fail _open_ then the whole system is really at the mercy of 'is it a power outage? when's the last time someone actually _checked these batteries_?', and as a techie person, that scary
The biggest issues seem to be with long vehicles getting stuck or being stopped by signals at level crossing. People in charge of planning always seem to forget about long vehicles.
I remember a school trip where a group of us were stuck on the tracks, and we could see a train in the distance. I think it saw us before then and slowed to a crawl long before the crossing, but I won't forget the initial panic we felt and the lack of any response by the driver.
Jesus, that’s horrifying.
A deaf school bus driver is a happy one
@@erik_dk842, when the time will come for me, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my uncle did. Not screaming in horror like his passengers.
@@seriouscat2231 Me too LOL
@@seriouscat2231his reads like one of those two sentence horror stories
It’s almost happened in California! Probably 10 years ago. My mother was leading a Chinese exchange student program in Sacramento area. She was following the bus full of students. She saw the bus stop before the train signal, but the bus was too far forward and the traffic gate came down on the roof of the bus. The driver did nothing! It was only a miracle that the train missed them.
I've seen similar stuff in videos. I've never understood how hearing something bonk the roof of your vehicle at a RR crossing doesn't trigger panic in any driver.
Same thing happened to me, but I was on the bus. Kids were screaming and the bus driver was angry because somehow it was "obvious" we wouldn't get hit just because the crossing guard was on our roof
Honestly the more I think about it the weirder it seems that there are this many stories about the exact same thing in these comments. How do all these drivers not react? Every time I've ever seen a train cross a street, the crossing doesn't just close and flash, it also makes a very loud *CLANG CLANG CLANG* noise well before the train arrives.
when i was in 4th grade we were going on a field trip into the city, and ran into a junction like this, almost the exact same situation unfolded but the bus driver was like screw this and slammed into the car in front of them instead. sure they got in trouble but we dodged a train.
@@persomnus what? He’s angry because it’s obvious that the bus would get hit?
I hate accidents like this, it's so easily avoidable
Sadly true
Could of been avoidable if they never made that a part of the bus route.
Most accidents are avoidable through relatively simple actions being taken.
@@GoatzombieBubba yeah and I agree, of course, but that would only avoid this accident and other school bus route accidents (specifically saying routes here because there’s field-trips and whatnot), but even then, school buses aren’t the only long vehicles to go through those areas, and like- yes the driver needs to be aware of things, but there’s a variety of reasons why I find that realistically, the main problem/group to blame here to be the road planners and whatnot. (Not to say there’s no fault to anyone else in individual incidents, but rather that, in general, it is a major part of this group’s job to meticulously check road plans for safety and design concerns, and they are to be held to a far higher standard, and know to calculate for human/driver error, especially since they are mostly, or at least partially funded by taxpayer dollars and are expected to keep the people safe to the best of their ability using every [reasonable] measure at their disposal) A. People are bound to make mistakes, and even small ones here can lead to death, possibly without someone realizing, B. Cars aren’t perfect, they’re machines that can have all kinds of problems happen seemingly out of nowhere sometimes, often while they’re being driven, bigger vehicles take way longer to move, especially if they’re carrying goods/cargo, and sometimes can be a good bit longer than a school bus as well, and that 7 second window of time to get off the track may not be long enough to get out of the way, C. If there’s a lot of of traffic on the highway or some other sort of traffic problem happening there, it may prevent a longer vehicle from being able to turn onto the highway and out of harms way. Obviously you can be careful and keep a close eye on things, but realistically, that 25 seconds or so isn’t always enough warning, and in some situations it may even be impossible to move out of the way in time. I also feel like while yes the bus driver is partially to blame here, it’s important to keep in mind just HOW chaotic and dangerous a bus full of children can be. and yes, I’m absolutely including even a bus full of elementary kids. As someone who used to take the bus when I was younger, I can confirm that all kinds of things, from physical fights, to students waxing eachother, to passing smokes or vapes around, to lighting things on fire, and more, happen on school buses. And that’s a lot of pressure to put on one person driving a bus full of 30 or more kids, because they’re expected to both keep an eye on the kids and the road at all times, and considering this was a new route for her and she wasn’t usually a driver, it’s understandable why she did what she did. And while the students may have been trying to warn her, it’s clear things were too chaotic and confusing for her to understand what they were saying in time.
@@GoatzombieBubba It's impossible in many cases. My HS didn't offer physics, so we were bused to a nearby school which did. There was a major road and railroad tracks running parallel to each other between the two schools. There was literally no way to get from one school to the other without crossing those railroad tracks. And because the history of the road and tracks was similar to the one in the video, every railroad crossing within about a 5 mile radius was like the one in the video (only with a bit more space).
They finally fixed it about 25 years later. Major project shutting down each road for 1.5 years, one after the other, and converting each railroad crossing into an overpass.
Back in the 80s, it wasn't unusual to see traffic lights overlapping railway crossings in New Jersey, US. I accidentally stopped on the tracks at a grade crossing in Manville, NJ and had to deliberately rear end another vehicle to avoid being struck by a train. Yes, it was my own stupidity (I was 17, so that's kind of a given) and yes, my car insurance went up dramatically, but it definitely increased my situational awareness after that.
Probably increased your lifespan also. It's bad, but it's also the least-worst option.
To your credit, even plenty of seasoned drivers could have fallen victim to the circumstance merely to being in "autopilot" while driving to or from work. Regardless, glad that you viewed it as a teaching moment and made it out okay 😁
@@NealBones I stopped thinking like a teenager that day. While I was waiting for the police to respond, I had plenty of time to consider the decisions that led to that point and I decided to own my inexperience and poor judgment and do better going forward. I did intentionally blow through a red light in hillside nj when a carjacker put a gun to my face 20 years later, but that's a different story and I don't think anyone would have chosen to do otherwise,
@berelinde Gun to my face, I'm zooming off myself! That being said, as a younger man myself, thank you for sharing your stories for both myself and those younger to learn from 🤝
"Kind of a given" most 17 year olds don't endanger themselves and others. You're special.
The hardest part of this is hearing that the children saw this coming and tried to warn the driver and had to endure the terror of the last few moments. Heartbreaking.Especially so hearing that there had already been similar incidents with long vehicles. Definitely a dumpster fire.
The issue is, many american roads were laid down directly next to railroads, often time at different elevations as well. It's not unusual for the rails to be a few feet higher than the road or vice-versa. Alot of these crossings started as farm access or private drives but urban sprawl demanded them become major intersections.
People just have to remember that everything is not all about them. Tracks mean danger and drivers have become more aggressive and territorial over the century. You cannot eliminate every danger related to driving, there has to be some common sense.
I've seen that in a lot of places in Texas. Lots of very weird turn offs that go over train tracks almost immediately.
@@martyjoseph9507 I agree people need to improve in driving but in this case the bus didn't fit in the intersection, the whole set up was an unnecessary hazard
@@martyjoseph9507 if the bus fit in the intersection properly this coulda been avoided though, bad road design is to blame as well as the driver not going on green but them widening roads and to not mess with shit on the other side taking some safety off the other is crazy and there are worse intersections out there, ones that have you immediately turning on tracks, god forbid any long vehicles like trucks or buses have to make those horrible turns. in the city i used to live these track intersections were also seldom maintenanced so lights often didnt work or thered be lights but no sound. or better yet, a railroad or two would only have a stop sign and no lights or horns
@@thebilldozer7970 it was unnecessary, but it existed. My choice on a new to me route with a train coming would've been to trust the kids screaming versus seeing what's going on. Easy mistake for everyone to make and overlook, but sometimes you gotta move it.
I heard this story a lot growing up, but the blame was always on the students in the back of the bus being too loud for the driver to notice the train coming. Sad they'd blame the kids, though they probably said it that way to get us to shut up in the bus.
Like telling kids not to go in the attic. Not from the real danger of falling through the beams but because of the monsters up there 😳
Not to mention it's counterproductive telling kids not to yell if they see a train about to hit them.
lol what kind of maggot would blame the kids.
@@solandri69 it's hard to make out what several kids are shouting all at once all the way across the bus. She was a substitute too so she wouldn't know the danger of the route nor if the kids are normally a rowdy bunch or if they're expressing something is wrong. The bus I rode in high school was always quiet so if we started screaming our driver would've known something bad is happening but the bus I rode in middle school was so bad and loud there were even fights that broke out mid intersection.
@@katrinascarlet5637 Surely it should have occurred to her that the reason they were yelling is her long-ass bus was about to get hit by a train? How can she be so stupid/unaware.
This horrifying story is local to me, and I drive on Rt.14 through Fox River Grove every day on my way to work. I still learned some things from the video that I didn't know. I always thought there was no synchronization between the crossing gates and the stoplight prior to this accident, but apparently there was. It was just inadequate. I do know that all of the rail crossings along Rt.14 were greatly improved after this. I appreciate the accuracy of your cartoon trains and busses. You could have used generic versions, but yours are totally correct for this area. Thanks for the video!
Yeah, I work in Barrington and cross that intersection all the time. It still weirds me out every time, like I'm driving over a grave or something.
I took 14 south to work for years and nearly every major intersection between Harvard and Crystal Lake has a cross at it, many of which had been there for years. Really stopping to think about that tells you just how dangerous so many of the intersections are. Something that sadly gets lost among the other topics that are deemed more important.
Pure nightmare fuel for an engineer and a parent.
As always a fantastic video John. Thank you!
The engineer lived. He got out of it finestkind.
Having been a school bus driver myself, you must be vigilant whenever you come to a railroad crossing. And don't do anything that would put yourself and your students in unnecessary danger.
And if the kids say that part of the bus is still on the tracks with a train approaching, then take it seriously and don’t just ignore them.
I just started driver training for city busses on Monday. Nightmare fuel.
@@TXnine7nine of course luckily I never had to cross such poorly designed railroad crossings.
@@TXnine7nine This part of this story made me more angry at the driver than expected, you have a bunch of people (kids or adults) yelling go, you freaking go!!!
@@D3M3NT3Dstrang3r All the commotion could make it a confusing situation.
I live just down the road from this intersection and every time I drive by, I cannot help but think of how absolutely terrified the children must have been. 😥
Same here. I have wondered why the students at the rear of the bus did not rush to the front when they saw the train bearing down on them. Not to mention why the driver didn't hear the train's horn and edge forward. We've been trained to be docile, stay seated, and obey traffic signals even seven they put us in danger. My son drives a school bus, and while it's not a high status job, I cannot imagine a steadier hand on the wheel.
@@erynlasgalen1949 That's what sad. Some of them did but they still died.
This is so surreal to see you cover this on your channel. This happened in my hometown. This specific incident, when I was ten years old. I remember when Rt. 14 was only 2 lanes. The driver of the bus lived just down the street from me. The media circus, the corrective measures for how buses now have to approach traffic lights. Hell they changed whole bus routes to no longer allow them to cross rail tracks in some districts after this. Wild to see all this again almost thirty years later.
I knew the FRG chief of police at the time, Bob Polston. Was a kid when this happened, but mom would tell me that that morning, he was having coffee at a local coffee shop with someone who had concerns over this intersections safety. He watched the accident happen. Said it was the worst day of his career. RIP.
My mother was a bus driver and trained newer drivers to pass the CDL exam and she actually can tell the difference of the safety procedures and training before and after this accident. she also mentioned how the interesting part of this is that the substitute driver was apparently the head of safety there and kids where telling her that she was on the tracks. I just wonder why in the world someone thought an intersection this close to a railroad crossing was a smart idea.
I've used that crosding a fair few times. I wondered why people were so aggressive about zooming up to the red light; thank you for clearing that up, they must have known where the signal sensor was located.
Chicagoland is chock full of level train crossings, many of them are as bad or worse than this one. Train safety was covered thoroughly in my driver's ed class in school. Rule One was never, ever stop on tracks. Rule Two was if you screwed up and did escape by any means necessary.
Yup. I honestly would love to see all train crossings blown up so actual competent road design can replace them. Nowadays they keep adding more lanes with no regard to existing infrastructure. I hate it here
@@henrymorales9584
Government: we needed to demolish this neighborhood to add 69 more lanes to solve traffic congestion.
Also Government: we can't make road infrastructure safer because we would have to make it inconvenient for drivers and the neighborhood.
At that time, I was driving to work in the northern Chicago suburbs. My route at that time took me north on Harlem Avenue past Grand Avenue, where there was another example of street widening that resulted in a distance between tracks and intersection that was too short for a bus or semi to clear. Every time I drove over those tracks and through the intersection after the bus accident, I couldn’t help but remember what I saw on the news that evening.
There was another place on 14 near Arlington Racetrack, can't remember the crossroad, but it always made me nervous.
@@maryeckel9682 The counties have to do something about it. It's a tragedy waiting to happen.
I live near Fox River Grove and vividly remember that accident. It was almost surreal watching you do a video about an accident so close to home. They typically seem so remote.
I used to take 14 (Northwest Highway) out to the burbs all the time. One thing I never heard much talk about after this is why the train horn didn't snap the driver back to attention. Even at half a mile away those metra trains are deafening, especially in front of the train, and I guarantee you they were on it the whole time they were trying to brake down.
I don't hear anything when I'm stressed
Where I'm from, trains will always blow their horn when crossing a roadway, 24/7. It doesn't necessarily mean something's in their way, just that they're crossing
This all transpired in a matter of literally seconds. I'm sure her adrenaline was running, and that can cause a "tunnel vision" effect where your brain will hyperfocus on some things and miss others. The first thing that goes is hearing. It's an involuntary response that happens even to people who are trained for dealing with crises.
@@erik_dk842then you should get hearing aids or shouldn't be allowed to drive
@@secretgirlnowI’m glad the trains don’t do that here, we have level crossings right through the town centre and when one does need to use the horn everyone can hear it, the sound travels about 3 miles. But I can definitely see why they’d want to require something like that, when there’s crossings like this.
The eerie music sounding like the squeeling of train wheel flanges is so fitting.
Thank you its my own music
@@PlainlyDifficult YO FR?? thats awesome! :0
@@PlainlyDifficult the music really adds a lot to these videos!
I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing this incident (among others) is the reason the schoolbuses I rode as a kid, when crossing railroad tracks, came to a full stop and we all had to be silent as the driver checked for trains and only then did they cross.
No they did that by law ever since the 1950's.
I'm sure she checked before crossing the tracks, just didn't think the whole scenario through when she left her butt on them, or didn't realize the urgency to avoid the train even if she was distracted by the commotion in the back. New route, bad design, bad spacial awareness
This was standard practice long before this accident and would have had no effect on this accident.
Trains are like bullets fired at you, the one you don't hear is the one that'll get you. There are far too many instances where a fast moving train can be quite close to you yet you're unable to hear it's approach.
Every bus I had ridden on stopped directly over the tracks and then opened the doors for the driver to check both ways. I never understood why, especially if there's a train coming- how that would be helpful!?
I worked as a messenger in the area. Over the 15 years I was working many roads were closed due to drivers using side roads to avoid traffic jams. A lot of fender benders when they tried to shoehorn back onto the major routes. I went through that intersection the week before the crash even with a minivan it was a bit of a risk. Thanks for bringing the issue of poor designs back.
Thanks for the great video!
I'm a signal maintainer who looks after railway crossings with preemptive systems like these ones.
It would never get built like this today, the crossing should have had a preemption circuit out at 5000' from the crossing, giving about 20 seconds of clear out time for pedestrians, and changing the traffic signal phase. Then the xing would still have about 30 seconds of a warning time while the roadway is clear.
The railway is mostly to blame here as that should have been spotted by any competent maintainer who attended that issue with the tractor trailer. Or during any kind of regulatory maintenance.
If you drive in north America and you see something like this then please report it. Take a video too, even better.
Really appreciated your comment. I found the short warming times described in the video really scary - so little time for drivers to react if anything has gone wrong! So glad to hear better design prevails today.
You should cover the Granville Rail disaster in Sydney in the 1970’s. It was one of those wrong place-wrong time situations, and one of the worst in Australian history.
I posted this on a previous video. I think it would be a perfect video for his series.
Yes, Granville deserves the John treatment for sure.
I was in 5th grade when this happened, and while school buses were not a part of my life, I did have to pick a newspaper item each week to summarize and then write some (kid-level) opinion/analysis about, and I picked a NY Times story about this incident one week. The point being, this drew national attention, getting coverage in New York even though it happened in the Chicago suburbs.
I can't believe the school had you reading News papers, writing report, & thinking critically. The good days of learning in sted of today's indoctrination centers run by Unions.
@@timtripp4222 it’s No Child Left Behind that squeezed out any room for that because you can’t standardized test for it. But whatever you need to tell yourself. Maybe do some critical thinking of your own.
@@timtripp4222As someone who also attended the NYC schools in that era, I can assure you that the teachers who were assigning those critical thinking assignments you admire so much were union members.
@@timtripp4222 I can assure you that children these days take part in similar activities… maybe not in every district, Which sucks, but as someone currently in high school we did much of the same stuff in elementary
I remember this one. Everyone was blaming the driver at first. The kids said they were yelling at her to go but she hesitated. Then they started investigating the crossing. The last thing I remember hearing was that “sometimes the RR warning lights didn’t come on”. I never knew that it was by design that the driver would have never been in a position to see them.
I'm originally from McHenry county and was in elementary school when this happened, and our district administrators decided that showing us photos of the accident during our yearly drills about getting off the buses in an emergency was a good idea. While it wasn't the most trauma inducing thing they showed us during those drills, it was pretty high on the list. Thank you for covering this.
I’ve been an engineer for a class 1 railroad for 15 years and couldn’t imagine how horrible this would’ve been. After watching this I’m sure this will be my new “work nightmare”
Hello from France
This level crossing was really badly designed. A small anecdote: when I did my military service, I was assigned to a fuel depot, this one being near a level crossing.
In the French army when a convoy presented itself the guard had to take the logbook of each vehicle and we at this petrol depot we had the order to just take the convoy leader's logbook and pass the rest of the trucks as quickly as possible, because the nightmare of our superiors was that a tank truck filled with fuel would be hit by a train. I can't even imagine the disaster it would have been
Well well done video, very good example of improper civil engineering. Excellent documentary!
Many thanks!
I saw the setup and thought, "Oh, no. You are _guaranteeing_ an accident. It's a matter of when, not if."
There is a similar crossing in a town closeby, but it's 33m between the tracks and the crossing, and there is another crossing directly at the other side of the rail, and both crossings are synced, and the crossing is direct at the train station, so most trains are either coming to a stop or departing at slow speeds anyway. It's just a crossing that connects two roads running parallel to the tracks and a road going off to the side that connects a handful farms.
I lived about block away from that... my dad was one of the first people at the scene. That day is burned into my memory forever. Helicopters landing on the highway, news helicopters flying around. Had to walk past it on my way to school. That day was horrible and all day at school had to look at that train sitting on the tracks. Will never forgot that day, just like I'll never forget 911. Rest in peace 7 angels!
I remember this happening and it can still give me a slight feeling of panic, knowing that those kids were trapped with no time to get out of the bus.
Blame should have gone solely to the DOT for the intersection placement. There are plenty of vehicles on the road that are much longer than the average economy car, so allowing an intersection to force such vehicles to stop across an active railroad is incredibly poor foresight.
Nobody forced the driver to stop across an active railroad.
@@cooldude7301 1. The driver didn't know she was in the way of the train
2. The driver presumably stopped as far forward as possible
If you can find information to refute this, I would like to see it to be sure that I am making an assessment with all of the necessary information.
@@raphaeldagamer 1. I agree she obviously did not know she was in the way of the train. She should not have proceeded to cross the railway line unless she was 100% sure she would be able to fully cross it with her vehicle. To do otherwise is mindboggingly stupid. 2. Perhaps she should have stopped BEFORE the train line?? And if this did not activate the light, she should have refused to cross that train line, and sought an alternative route. The moment she crossed that train line she made a huge mistake.
@@raphaeldagamer Oh and she should have been 100% familiar with the route beforehand. And the risks/danger spots. She should not have driven the vehicle if she was unfamiliar with the route.
@@raphaeldagamer she was someone who was in charge of training other drivers so she damn well should know the dangers of train crossings.
This was horrible urban planning. RIP to the victims and their families.
Do you think you'll also be doing a video on the recent Ohio train disasters that have released poisonous chemicals into the surrounding areas? I've noticed you do a lot of train stories, and it would give the residents of that area some justice to have their story spread around as much as possible- maybe something can be done to help if it's a recent and ongoing situation?
You mean derailment caused by precision scheduled railroading
I was a 5th grader in Fox River Grove when this happened. We had 3 girls in my class who lost a brother and sisters that day. I will never forget that day.
In Switzerland i experienced similar traffic events as a child.
I often saw these kind of narrow junctions on train stations.
Most problematic was the trains driving nonstop there and entering ones. Else there was just a huge delay with all the traffic building up.
Sometimes there was apparently no other solution than manually sending signals because some junctions had a lot of people stuck in traffic.
Later i saw teens fiddling around on the gates so they would open automatically (in case someone was stuck they open again if pressure was applied while it closes). Stay safe and take care of each other!
4:44 the horrid junctions
Most were replaced with tunnels underneath the rails.
Please, please, please never run rail road tracks or go around barriers... the couple of minutes saved going home isn't ever worth the risk. ♥
Thank you!
Dont tell me how to drive my school bus!
@@potatopobobot4231 I won't tell you how to drive your bus any more....IF..... you can ramp the railroad tracks without the back tires touching and at least two kids hit their face off a seat
Thanks again for your work John!
I know it isn't as dramatic as many others, but have you considered looking at the WIPP storage facility accident from a few years ago? The unexpected nature of the problem and complications trying to deal with it make for an interesting story with lots of good stuff about the difficulty in burying nuclear waste safely. If you are on a train kick at the moment, put it on the list for future rads reference...
Here kitty...
@@k53847 I use "Swheat Scoop"" for my cat as well...
I lived in Palatine (city about 10 miles away) at the time of this incident. I remember all of my friends would talk about this for months afterwards. I have driven by this crossing so many times, I completely forgot about what happened. Thanks for the story!
this junction really is just an example of awful everything
Living about an hour south of this event it is burned into my brain and I remember the news reports and everything. By the way spot on pronunciation of Algonquin.
I remembered this happening. Another thing I heard that caused a great deal of the injuries and even some of the deaths of the students was the fact the kids in the back started to run toward the front to avoid the back where the collision was gonna take place. The centrifugal force of the impact the students were subjected to caused the most amount of damage. I mean, if the train was able to take the bus's body off the frame, you know damn well it was a hell of an impact. Those students running toward the front, I donno if they would have been better off staying in the back or not; it seemed like they were hosed either way. Standing while that kind of force was being exerted, not being secured to the rigid structure of the bus itself had to factor in some of the students not making it,
"I donno if they would have been better off staying in the back or not"
Gonna press X to doubt right there.
its going to pivot around the heaviest mass.... the engine, so the closer to the dash the higher the likelyhood of survival (and being low to the floor sheilding the head). Hence the driver was only lightly injured.
Maybe, but I feel like most of the ones in the further/furthest back that moved would almost have definitely died from the impact if they stayed there anyways, due to the sheer force of that train ripping through the bus
"it seemed like they were hosed either way"
I couldn't have thought of a gentler way to phrase it myself.
In all likelihood, the bus was not equipped with seat belts (most aren't), so any students who stayed in the back wouldn't have been secured to anything in either case. Better to flee to the front; most probably didn't have time to get very far.
Being from Fox River Grove and attending Cary Grove High School I cannot express how devastating this was and still is for such a small town. Hearing different recollections from teachers and parents growing up was always very haunting. I remember my 8th grade teacher telling us how he had to tell a student her older brother was on the bus and had not made it. Very surreal seeing a video about the tragedy that happened 3 blocks from your house.
This reminds me of a very sad accident in the Netherlands. A before school hours daycare person was on her way with a couple of kids in a "stint" all electric bike vehicle. When she saw the barriers come down, she hit the brakes, except nothing happened. The thing gets stuck on the tracks. The adult managed to get one or two kids out before the other 4 kids were hit by the train. She lost her legs in the accident.
Pure horror... the kids were something between 5 and 8 years old.😢
Aaah, yes, adding more lanes totally work
yep, its worse now as its two four lane intersections where we have like 7 major streets feeding them.
I lived in that area when it happened. This was horrifying.
I was living in Illinois at the time and remember how horrific this accident was. I hope that everyone involved, from the families to the drivers of both the train and bus have been able to find some measure of peace.
I absolutely HATE intersections like that. Also so many people don't get it, and I've had some that get road-rage-y if you don't pull up to the bumper of the car ahead even when there's a rail-crossing you would be blocking.
I can attest that not all RR crossings have signals and/or crossbars. In the late 1980's I was a college student in southern Kentucky. The small college was in a tiny coal mining town. My roommate and I were returning from a larger town and we're on a 4 lane highway. To get to the college you had to turn right off the highway, go over train tracks and down a steep but short hill. I had a really crappy car that ate fan belts. Literally. That day the belt waited until I had turned to break. I was on the tracks. And there was a train coming. I hadn't seen the train and there were no flashing lights or crossbar. The guy behind me pushed my car with his truck and we both got off the track just in time. I went to school there for only 1 year so I don't know if they ever got any safety devices.
Hope you got a car that stopped trying to k1ll you...😳
Why would u drive such a shitty car around that could stop working at any moment
@@cooldude7301
Apparently you have a car fairy that just delivers cars.
@@grmpEqweer no im just not stupid enough to drive an old wreck over the train lines
@@cooldude7301 Unless they've got the funds to buy a new car, they either have to cross or find a bridge or something, and depending on the area it could be miles out of their way.
Wow I lived there for a few months 15+ years ago. While living there Ive heard some stories but wasn't much detail. So each year the Christmas tree at the local high school is decorated with ribbons or something for each of the victims. Legend has it that no one knows who decorates the tree.
I actually went to school where this incident happened, Cary-Grove. There’s a memorial out front called the friendship circle. My mom went to CG at the time and had a friend who was on the bus, the whole community took it hard cuz it was such a small area, stuff like this doesn’t happen here.
I can vividly picture him leaning back and peering out a window in that little pause before he says "currently sunny" at the end 😆
Some years ago, a similar accident happened near my family's village, in Southern France. It's known as the Perpignan Crash in English, though in France we call it the Millas accident, since it happened near the town of the same name. 6 teens died, the driver of the school bus, Nadine Oliveira, got 5 years of prison. It was quite shocking at a national level, since such accidents are pretty damn rare over here.
Wow finally someone made something about this! I live near this and my mom grew up in the area and said if you cross the track at night sometimes you can hear children.
When I was younger on a field trip our bus stop near some train tracks a few kids and I noticed that the back of the bus was crossing a bit on the track. We told her to move up a bit. The bus driver said I'm not going into traffic I'm behind the stop line. I ended up convincing her to move by saying "yeah I'm not asking you to go into traffic just move up a bit still behind the line. The back of the bus is kinda crossing the tracks" she then realized the seriousness of the situation asked if it really was. we confirmed that looking out the bus side window, we could see straight down the track.
After she moved the bus forward she said thanks for the warning and she didn't want this exact situation happening.
We ended up talking about this sad story and the cause of it
Thank you John.
These subjects deserve to be remembered and you do it with such respect and clear presentation. You are very gifted and talented.
I graduated high school in Algonquin 2 towns over in 1996. My boyfriend lived in Crystal Lake (also a few towns over, and he had to cross the same tracks to get to school) and wasn't sure where this accident happened. I had to wait to hear from him. (No cell phones) it was really scary.
Thank you John. This is still talked about today. It gives me pause to think every time I cross a railroad at in intersection.
I don't know why this one hit so hard. Maybe because kids were involved, but this one almost made me cry.
I used to drive school busses in the county this accident happened, It was brought up in Training, The county has probably the most street level crossings than any other in the U.S. They have done a lot to re-engineer a lot of problematic crossings. When there is a crossing near a intersection, the lights will change to green to clear any traffic on the tracks, while the crossing gates are coming down. for crossings that don't have safe clearance, they moved the traffic light ahead of the Railroad crossing so people don't stop on the tracks. Chicago was built for Rail, so its a central hub for the entire U.S. Even to this day, there are still a lot of accidents between Train vs Pedestrian/Vehicle around the Chicago area. usually about once a year there is some pedestrian killed along a METRA line.
Such a fantastic video very respectful and matter of fact. I’m from the town over to Fox River Grove and went to the high school and my dad was one of the police officers on scene so this accident hits very deep for everyone in this area. Great job as always
One of my friends grew up in Fox River Grove. He said this event has marked the town to this day. They’re all still traumatized over this.
10 years later to the day a kid got hit on his bike at a neighboring crossing.
great place for dive bars and illicit commodities traders. good Chinese place right by the corner from the video, and a nice little guitar shop at the light a block away but i doubt that's what your friend is referring to, haha.
@@merlinious01 are you talking about Brian from Cary?
@@stevenunyabidness
No, he was from FRG. Justin Glassmeyer.
@stevenunyabidness7803
I know the family who runs that chinese place, grew up alongside their kids. Good people.
There's a monument at what's now called Seven Angels Crossing where the bus body came to rest and a permanently mounted yellow downward pointed arrow speed restriction board a mile each side of the crossing to indicate the lowered speed through FRG.
The animations were very helpful in understanding the situation. Well done video. Rip victims.
There was a bus driver that was fired from my school district after the back of the bus blocked traffic on a busy road. It was a divided highway, he needed to turn left but a driver in front of him stopped mid crossing to try to join traffic. The bus driver was about bumper to bumper with the car, but there wasn't enough space. The road they were crossing had 2 lanes with a 65mph speed limit. Luckily, no one got hurt but the cell phone video was pretty scary.
I remember the movie The Sweet Hereafter, based on a different incident from 1991, which killed 14, and made me painfully aware of dangerous train crossings and particularly the risks to school buses.
I once witnessed a large tall truck go through a crossing AS the traffic barriers were coming down, and the truck just plowed right through them. They snapped into pieces, and had it not been for other clear signals of the oncoming train, another car in front of us might’ve accidentally crossed even more closely in front of the train. I hear too often of people trying to beat trains across the track. The traffic barriers should make it virtually impossible, yet that truck just barreled through and turned them into toothpicks. And some people even actually try to go AROUND the barriers!
But getting stuck in front of oncoming death because your bus is hanging over the tracks? Probably my second-greatest nightmare involving a school bus, the first being the bus swept away in the 1938 New England hurricane as it tried to cross a flooded causeway, drowning all but one kid and the driver. Third is the Chowchilla kidnapping of an entire school bus 26 of kids and their driver, who were then transferred to two specially converted vans and BURIED ALIVE. They were amazing and got themselves out despite being in total darkness and oppressive heat with no water, buried for two days. Or maybe flip the order, because that’s utterly horrifying, though they all survived.
School buses are interesting in terms of safety developments over the decades; so many safety features originating in tragedies. They still seem extremely unsafe! And that’s just the vehicles themselves, not to mention the complications of the road they’re on and vehicles they share it with!
being a pedestrian i get a very intimate and up close look at how badly road planning and public works really is. its truly frightening especially when you have zero protection. its frustrating that it takes tragedies for the planners to realize they messed up.
I was a baby but we lived in walking distance from the accident at the time. My mom could hear the collision. The awful smashing and crashing sounds. She didn’t know what it was at the time but even hearing it then understanding what happened later left her in therapy and having nightmares about the sound
I later lived in Crystal lake until college, and that intersection is still a sore spot for many who have lived there our whole lives and taken that bus route every day for years.
I'm glad all the railway crossings in my area have been converted to under- or overpasses since my childhood, back then you even had to cross the tracks to get to the platforms at smaller train stations, nowadays they avoid this at all cost, everything has been modernized.
Unfortunately due to the sheer size of the U.S. and its railroad network it's impossible financially to do that outside of major cities. Developing the grade needed to make a safe over-under pass is quite expensive.
Also people refuse not to be idiots. The famous low train overpass that's on youtube that people constantly run over sized vehicles into had all sorts of measures done, including the railroad increasing the height of the bridge and redeveloping the grade at great expense to themselves and yet people still take tall vehicles under it despite the electronic measuring system and warning signs.
Thanks for covering this. It was a very dramatic thing in the local area.
I remember seeing this on the news when I was ten years old. I always assumed it was just a bad driver, but this clears that all up. How such a dangerous intersection was ever allowed to operate is beyond me.
still a bad driver to leave the back of her bus sitting across train tracks.
She was a bad driver the light turned green and she didn't go. If she had just ignored the loud kids they would have lived instead she was like "durrr why are they screaming while next to train tracks?" and refused to move
@@Moonsprecher yep seems like something only a silly woman would do. I can't imagine a man being this stupid.
I remember when this happened. 10 years after this accident there was an accident in Elmwood Park where the tracks cross Grand Avenue at a 10° angle, so it's a very long crossing, and there were cars backed up from a red light very close to the tracks when a train came and plowed through about a dozen and a half cars. Miraculously, nobody was killed. I'm almost positive they're the same tracks as the Fox River Grove accident. lronically, the Elmwood Park accident happened just about a few hundred yards before River Grove Illinois. The regular, plain old River Grove.
BTW, when I was 15 years old I saw an old man who stood in front of a 70 mile an hour commuter train at the Elmwood Park stop, which was just a couple hundred yards before the long crossing. It actually spread his body parts all the way across the crossing where the accident would happen in 2005. Oddly, I don't remember seeing any blood. But I'll never forget his shoe, because it didn't knock him out of his shoes like you'd think, since his foot was still in his shoe, it's just that his foot wasn't attached to his leg. Also, I used to walk home from school down them same railroad tracks, and for the next few days those white, seagull looking birds that you always see eating french fries in a fast food restaurant parking lot were all over the tracks right where the old man got smeared. Then, just a couple of years before that, a kid I went to high school with lost both of his legs in the exact same spot when he tried racing a train across the tracks while he was shitfaced drunk.
I think your referring to that one clip of an lillinois central train colliding with an lrst truck causing the truck to plow thru cars in front of it
I'm a medic in the US pacific northwest and surprisingly have never been called in 10 years for a rail accident.
Seen some truly gut wrenching vehicle accidents though. People trying to pass over a specific double yellow two lane, blind curving road at night and head-on hitting a semi truck at a closing speed of about 130mph. The results always looked like a train vs car crash.
As someone who lives about half an hour of the site of the accident, hearing you call it "the Algonquin road" repeatedly has me in giggles. Also, you did a great job animating the trains to look like genuine Metra trains. Thank you!
at least he pronounced it like a local, pretty impressive for someone on another continent.
British phrasing
Great road design, trully inspiring.
i was in school at that time, and in the town over. it changed a lot from before to after. Great video, as always
There are no shortage of crossings like this around the Chicago region. I live near 2 of them within a few miles of my home but luckily rarely need to use them anymore. I've often seen gates come down, go back up, then come back down barely in time for the train crossing the road, I've seen gates close barely in time, I've seen gates lift before the train is done crossing, etc. It's sad but these kinds of issues don't get addressed in a lot of instances until either a lot of people die or important people die.
Part and parcel of third world country level of infrastructure
@@erik_dk842 I hate to agree but sadly it's true.
Have you heard of the "Sandö Bridge Collapse"
It was the largest concrete arch bridge in the world but it collapsed on 31 August 1939 during construction.
Because of WW2 starting the next day it did not get much press.
The building restarted and the bridge was finished in 1943
I live near Fox River Grove and one of my teachers from middle school sat us all down before a field trip and told us about this accident and how some of her friends were on the train. She told us about how in the school afterward no one would speak on the bus whenever it was driving for a long time for fear of their bus colliding with anything. Needless to say, we were absolutely dead silent whenever we neared any railroad track. I thought she was bluffing, in all honesty, but I was still quiet at the railroad because it's common courtesy. Now every bus I've been on, even Greyhound buses, stop before crossing any railroad and open the driver's window and door to hear if anything is coming.
I’m from a town with a bunch of train crossings, things like this scared our town enough there were various crossings where you would pass under or over the tracks, except for a few places. The bussing routes all use the methods that prevented ever crossing directly on rails and in fact had policy in place that no busses were ever allowed over rails. I’m glad they had those setup for us, they also were very strict on rail safety to a point they had at least one school assembly a year to teach us rail safety and ensure we never had any issues
I grew up there/here. This crossing is a nightmare. There is no fixing it. I’ve been run-over on my bicycle there, compound fracture. I’ve been clipped in my car, bruise from airbag. I’ve laid flowers on multiple graves. At least the ep fire station is right next door. Also, that road crossing is nowhere near 90 degrees, it is the longest, and at the most retarded angle.
Having lived on this rail line and taken it many hundred of times I can say, most of the crossings were, and still are, dangerous in the extreme. Also, this is quite common in the US, sensors only at closest part to intersection so no one wants to stop before the tracks, but not enough space in some cases even for a large car, much less truck, or bus, to not be hanging over the tracks dangerously.
I go over a crossing very close to this one many times per week, and I always think back to this. Thanks for covering this one!
I had to look up the aerial image, and as of April 2023, they moved the traffic light to the other side of the train tracks. The area that the bus was stopped when it was hit is now striped with white paint, which I guess indicates a "clear zone" or something. Always sad to hear of kids dying, but thank you for the video!
Live in the area and remember this. Unfortunately people are still getting hit in many areas nearby. The lights have gotten much better, but I will say it wasn't hard to get trapped in a bad position.
I originally heard about this on Thunderbolt 1000 Siren's channel. It was in my suggested about 6 months ago iirc and I'd never heard of it. Your video has a lot of good information about how it happened.
I grew up in this town! It’s wild I listen to this channel all the time and I always wondered if you’d cover this tragedy. To this day I’m respectful and scared of railroad crossings. It left a real impact on the town. It’s so hard to put into words how tiny this town is. Barely even legally a town, closer to a village. The kinda place you couldn’t get away with shenanigans as a kid cuz everyone knew you and who your parents are. I was 3 when this happened but my brother was in grade school and took this crossing every day in his bus. This was the older kids bus but poor mom had a real fright that day hearing a school bus was hit but not knowing Which school bus.