(Source: Kankakee Daily Journal, March 14, 2019)
KANKAKEE, Ill. — The clock read 9:48 p.m. on Monday, March 15, 1999. Time stood still for one brief moment, and then, everything changed. Darkness engulfed the frozen landscape of the northern edge of Bourbonnais on that evening when the Amtrak train, The City of New Orleans, headed southbound from Chicago, collided at the McKnight Road railroad crossing with a semitrailer loaded with 22 tons of steel. The City of New Orleans, a train of two locomotives, one baggage car, 11 passenger cars and two sleeper cars, was carrying 198 passengers, an Amtrak crew of 17, two off-duty Amtrak employees and two off-duty Illinois Central Railroad employees when it struck the loaded flatbed. The tragic accident resulted in 11 deaths and 122 seriously injured.
Full story: Kankakee Daily Journal