Federal authorities investigating last week’s deadly collision between a train and a truck said Sunday that they are leaning toward a theory that the truck driver began to cross the tracks after warning lights started flashing but before crossing gates came down.
Although National Transportation Safety Board officials cautioned it will take weeks or months to determine a cause for last Monday’s deadly accident, the theory that investigative sources told the Tribune they currently favor is consistent with statements made by at least two witnesses.
The investigation continued as thousands of Bourbonnais residents came together Sunday for memorial observances that showed last week’s train wreck, in which 11 people traveling on an Amtrak Superliner were killed, is now part of the village’s identity. Three services brought together citizens ranging from law enforcement officials to medical workers to people who became heroes for a night.
Despite the new accounts gleaned from witnesses, some physical evidence still suggests that trucker John R. Stokes snaked his truck around the gates–and officials said they are trying to reconcile the apparently contradictory information. And while investigators have said that the warning system worked properly after the accident, they nevertheless continued re-testing it Sunday.
An attorney for Stokes, Leonard Sacks, said Sunday that “common sense” dictates the accident was caused by a mechanical malfunction of the warning system. Sacks said his client did not zig-zag around downed crossing gates.
Stokes himself told the NTSB that the warning systems did not activate until after he started across the tracks, investigators said. He saw the lights begin to flash when his truck already was on the tracks.
“Common sense tells me there is something wrong with that system of how those gates come down,” Sacks said. “There is no reason for him to go around them. It doesn’t make any sense. And now we have more eyewitnesses and more corroboration of that.”
Three witnesses interviewed last week told the NTSB that the crossing gates were in an upright position when Stokes began to cross the tracks. At least two of them said the warning lights were blinking, NTSB sources said.
Investigators privately are speculating that Stokes drove the truck, loaded with steel from a nearby plant, onto the tracks under the belief that the warning lights were activated by a slow-moving freight train rather than by a much faster passenger train.
The warning system is designed to activate when a train trips sensors 3,400 feet from the crossing, and a second sensor that measures the speed of the train controls when the gates actually come down; for a train traveling 79 m.p.h., as this one was, there is a 26-second span between the time the train trips the system and crosses the intersection. Only four passenger trains run through Bourbonnais each day–and Stokes told a local police officer several hours after the crash: “It had to be the fast one,” according to an NTSB source.
The lights should begin blinking three to four seconds before the gates come down, according to the Illinois Central railroad. The IC maintains the system at the crossing.
“Numerous” eyewitnesses have come forward, including other motorists who were sitting behind the truck along McKnight Road, a source said Sunday. Investigators have remained in Illinois to interview the witnesses, but all physical-evidence teams returned to Washington over the weekend.
The third eyewitness, a restaurant worker from Chicago who was driving a car two vehicles behind the truck, told investigators that the truck pulled onto the tracks with the gates upright and signal off, although the whistle on the City of New Orleans could be heard for some time. But investigators are still trying to analyze his statements, given through a Spanish-speaking interpreter with the Illinois State Police.
Sacks said Sunday his client’s vision along the tracks was impaired by two freight cars parked along the tracks. His client has expressed “deep sympathy” for the victims and their families, Sacks said.
“He really is saddened by the fact that 11 people are dead,” Sacks said. “He has been made out to be a bad guy, and that isn’t true. He’s as broken up about this as anyone, and he’s as much a victim as anyone.”
Meanwhile on Sunday–left with the thoughts of an exhausting week of tragedies and heroism–residents in the small community gathered at the College Church of the Nazarene to take a deep breath and finally set aside a day for rest. At three services, they came to mourn the dead and honor the rescuers.
Meeting collectively for the first time since the accident, state legislators and steel workers mingled with dozens of law enforcement officials and hundreds of rescuers.
“The people who died in this crash, especially the children who lost their lives in this tragedy, they are now ours, they are a part of us,” said Bourbonnais Mayor Grover Brooks, announcing plans for a memorial to be built at the town center. “This tragedy is now a part of our history. The people on that train will always be a part of us.”
So Brooks, Rev. Dan Boone, head pastor at Church College, and other village leaders were left to shepherd the congregation through the difficult, complex emotions of the last week.
“Sometimes, we do not understand our world,” Boone acknowledged in prayer. “But when you experience loss, when you mourn, when you grieve, you’re blessed because God comes to comfort you.”
The congregation then stood silent as the names, ages and hometowns of the 11 dead were displayed on overhead screens.
“Remember that these people have dreams, families, friends, hopes,” Boone said. “Recognize the names, read them and become conscious.”
The services were also an opportunity for village leaders to emphasize the efforts of an “entire community of heroes.”
“God enters into the skin and bones of ordinary people,” Boone said. “God does his work through ordinary people. It was the love of God poured willingly through you. What you did mattered, what you did was significant.”
On the night of the accident, village resident Lori Grzelak said she noticed firefighters were slipping on frost. She rushed to a nearby store to grab giant bags of salt to help de-ice the crash site and then ran supplies back and forth from the road to the crash site.
“I’ll never forget watching the firefighters faces, to see terror reflected on their faces,” Grzelak said. “They had to swallow it and work through it.”
Church pews were lined with firefighters, police officers and emergency medical workers from throughout the Kankakee River Valley–many of them unpaid or on-call volunteers. Several wept openly during a video of the tragedy, produced by a church member and culled from news clips. Brooks said it was part of the healing process and offered it as an opportunity for reflection.
