Two freight trains collided Tuesday morning, sending more than a dozen boxcars and three locomotives off the tracks in Momence, just 11 miles east of the site of last week’s Amtrak crash that killed 11 people.
A southbound Union Pacific train hauling auto parts to Texas and Mexico had just cleared a rail intersection around 7:03 a.m. when it was struck by an eastbound Conrail train headed for Elkhart, Ind., according to officials from the Momence Fire Protection District.
The crash, which could be heard several blocks from the four-way rail intersection, caused minor injuries to three of the four crew members on the two trains. The fourth crewman avoided injury by jumping from one of the locomotives just before the crash, Momence fire officials said.
The accident caused one of three locomotives pulling the 60-car Conrail train and one of the two Union Pacific locomotives to tip on their sides and tore up several hundred feet of track. About a dozen freight cars on the 43-car Union Pacific train left the track.
“The early indications are that our engines ran into the side of their train,” said Conrail spokesman Ron Hildebrand.
Initially, there was concern that several dozen homes near the site might have to be evacuated because thousands of gallons of diesel fuel spilled from the locomotives, creating the potential for an explosion. However, emergency workers quickly cleaned up the fuel.
The leak also threatened to contaminate the Kankakee River, the main water source for about 80,000 people in Momence and nearby communities, Momence officials said. But workers trapped fuel by laying hay over and pouring sand into the creek that flows along the tracks. The creek empties into the Kankakee River.
According to John Bromley, Union Pacific public affairs director, the cause was either human error or a malfunction by one of the computer-controlled signals that indicate when it is safe for a train to proceed through the intersection.
“Ultimately, it will be up to the National Transportation Safety Board to determine who or what caused the collision,” Bromley said. A team of NTSB officials was scheduled to arrive Tuesday night from Washington, D.C., to begin an investigation.
James S. Dunn, the same NTSB official who headed the investigation of the Amtrak crash in Bourbonnais, will be in charge of finding the cause of the Momence wreck.
Conrail engineer Tim Norred was hospitalized along with another unidentified rail crew member for observation at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee. Both were in good condition late Tuesday, according to hospital spokeswoman Mary Thomson. The other injured crew member, who received minor cuts and bruises, was treated and released, she said.
Although the collision resulted in only minor injuries, the wreck sent shivers through Kankakee County fire and police emergency crews, almost all of whom took part in rescue efforts last week at the Amtrak crash site, officials said.
“When I was informed of the crash this morning, I thought to myself, `This has got to be a joke,’ ” said Jim Lamotte, who recently retired as chief of the Momence Fire Protection District and now is its spokesman. “How can you have two rail crashes within a week’s time and only 11 miles apart? All of us are just shaking our heads in disbelief.”
The Momence train crash also proved to be deja vu for National Transportation Safety Board rail accident inspector Rick Downs. Downs was in Bourbonnais Tuesday morning wrapping up the investigation of the March 15 Amtrak disaster when he got the call to go to Momence to help investigators there determine the cause of the freight train collision.
“Things like (two train wrecks in the same area just a few days apart) happen, but they’re rare,” Downs said.
Many of the same fire departments that responded to the Amtrak crash were at the Tuesday’s wreck on the northeast side of Momence, including members of the Bourbonnais Fire Department.
But unlike last week’s collision, which injured more than 100 people, there was less of a sense of urgency among the emergency crews once it was determined that the injuries appeared to be minor, Lamotte said.
“Whatever caused the crash, it was scary,” said James Coulter, 36, who lives a block west of the Momence crash site. “There was this loud boom, and then there were clouds of smoke and flames shooting up high into the air.”
