(The following report appeared on the website Riverside/ Brookfield Landmark on December 12.)
OAK PARK, Ill. — The Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad has settled a lawsuit filed against it by the estate of an Oak Park woman who was killed by a Metra express train in 2005.
According to Cook County court documents, the BNSF in April agreed to pay the estate of Patricia Quane $2.5 million. That amount was confirmed by an attorney at the Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, which represented Quane’s estate in court.
Quane, 52, was killed on the morning of Aug. 23, 2005 as she was riding her bicycle across the BNSF railroad tracks at Longcommon Road in downtown Riverside. According to witnesses and police, Quane was stopped on the south side of the crossing, waiting for a Metra commuter train that had stopped in Riverside to clear the crossing. But, when she attempted to cross in front of the train, she was struck by a second express train, which was heading east on the northernmost set of train tracks.
At least one witness told police that Quane may have mistaken a train conductor’s signal to passengers as an OK to cross the tracks. Quane’s family filed the lawsuit against the railroad on Sept. 28, 2005.