(The following story by Hayley Graham appeared on the Daily-Journal website on March 15, 2009.)
KANKAKEE, Ill. — The Amtrak crash that occurred 10 years ago today was a tragedy, but has led to improved railway safety and better prepared emergency responders.
Warren Flatau, spokesman for the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration, said train accidents with passenger fatalities are rare.
“Bourbonnais was really the exception in grade crossing collisions that resulted in deaths of passengers,” he said.
Even so, Flatau said the crash has and will continue to go a long way in improving passenger safety.
“There have been significant improvements and the number of fatalities and injuries has declined,” he said.
In fact, the number of fatalities from train accidents decreased 11 percent from 1998 to 2007, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Even with increases in highway and train traffic, the number of people killed from grade crossing collisions decreased by 70 percent from a high of 1,115 in 1976 to 338 in 2007.
Safety progresses
A change in the law came just one year after the accident.
The truck driver, John R. Stokes, drove around the crossing gates into the path of the train, trying to beat it when he was hit. At the time, Stokes was operating under a provisional license issued by the state to commercial motor vehicle drivers following a pattern of major traffic violations.
Stokes avoided having his license revoked by getting court supervision for the violations that occurred in multiple counties. To prevent this, the state legislature passed a law requiring circuit clerks to report all court supervisions to a central data base in the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office in 2000.
The crash spurred nationwide changes as well.
The National Transportation Safety Board also made safety recommendations following its investigation. The installment of event recorders at new crossing gates is one of them.
By 2000, Canadian National/Illinois Central Railroad installed video recording equipment at the McKnight Road crossing and several others nearby. Since then, review of the tapes has helped with the enforcement of traffic laws at grade crossings.
Another recommendation was for better emphasis on emergency responders preparedness for responding to these types of accidents.
The Bourbonnais Fire Protection District was criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board for not being prepared to handle the large amounts of burning diesel fuel at the crash due to lack of training.
But at the time of the accident, the closest fire department with an engine carrying foam to douse the blaze was in Will County, and took about an hour to arrive. Today, however, with more state and federal funding, all Bourbonnais fire vehicles are equipped with foam, and the department has three new engines.
Bourbonnais Deputy Fire Chief Jim Keener said the accident was among a number of incidents nationwide in the last decade that drew attention to the need for better preparedness of emergency responders.
“There were a lot of emergencies across the U.S. that opened avenues,” he said.
In 2004, Congress approved a National Incident Management System, a standardized management approach for local, state and federal response to emergencies, and states receive funding annually for it.
Locally, emergency responders are now equipped with a better communications system, increased training and more equipment to handle such incidents.
Bourbonnais Fire Chief Ed St. Louis said shortly after the Amtrak crash a new communications system was put in place allowing fire, police and hospitals to communicate on the same system, which was a problem in responding to the crash.
“We’ve been making things simpler to get resources there quicker,” St. Louis said.
Within the last five years, the area has created two new specially trained teams through MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, which are the Kankakee Valley Technical Rescue Team and a Hazardous Materials Response Team. Those teams are made up of local emergency responders who take classes to become certified in those areas.
St. Louis said their training and preparation will continue to evolve.
“It’s a continuously changing environment, and we’re always exposed to new ideas,” he said.
Amtrak also made a few adjustments to its train in response to the tragedy.
One-year after the accident Amtrak implemented the use of handheld computer devices to better maintain an accurate passenger count aboard its trains. This was a concern in the Bourbonnais crash because there was not an up-to-date list of passengers due to some getting off before the accident.
More to do
Rail safety has improved dramatically over the last several decades, but the potential for another tragedy is still there and more steps can be taken to prevent it.
Heather A. Begley, an associate at the Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Kroll in Chicago, represented some of the victims injured in the accident in a lawsuit against Amtrak, Birmingham Steel, Illinois Central and the truck driver, which was settled in 2004.
Said Begley, “I think that there is a laundry list of things that need to be done to keep rail transportation safe.”