Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The CTA's Green Line service is back to normal Thursday afternoon. Repairs and inspections are complete following Wednesday morning's derailment, and trains were running normally as of 3 p.m.

As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, 14 people were taken to hospitals when the train derailed Wednesday morning on the outbound Green Line near 59th Street and Prairie Avenue. It was the fourth major breakdown on the CTA 'L' system in the past 22 months.

CTA crews have been testing the site of the tracks on Thursday morning.

Crews worked on the tracks all night, and conducted a test run of empty trains through the accident site in the early morning hours.

The train derailed on the CTA Green Line near 59th Street. One train car continued due south, while another decoupled and veered off to the west. Operator error has been blamed for the crash.

"It's a preliminary investigation at this point," CTA President Ron Huberman said. "Preliminarily, though, it does point to the fact that there might have been human error in this incident."

Late Wednesday CTA officials said it appeared the train's operator contributed to the derailment by going through a red light, which had signaled the operator to stop.

For some reason, he then overrode the trip device that would have automatically cut power to the train. The train then hit a switching apparatus at track-level that was out of place. That caused the derailment.

"This particular operator had 31 years of service with the CTA," Huberman said Wednesday. "We pulled his record back for four years and in the last four years he's had no violations of safety-related items whatsoever."

The train operator, William Jones, 57, was recertified just a few months ago. He is now facing extensive questioning and a mandatory drug test.

A total of 24 people were taken off the train by paramedics after the derailment, Fire Media Assistant Director Eve Rodriguez said. Fourteen of those passengers, jerked and jostled, were injured. Three were reported in fair to serious condition and 11 people were reported in good to fair condition. She did not know the nature of their injuries. Ten people taken from the train refused medical treatment, Rodriguez said.

This is the fourth major incident on the CTA that has forced evacuation and Fire Department attention in the past two years.

On July 11, 2006, a Blue Line train derailed in the subway between the Clark/Lake and Grand stops, causing a smoky fire to break out. About 150 people were hospitalized, mostly for smoke inhalation.

On Dec. 19, 2006, two cars of a four-car an Orange Line train headed for Midway Airport derailed near Roosevelt Road. No one was hospitalized, but 24 people were evacuated and eight were examined by paramedics.

This past April 15, passengers self-evacuated when a Blue Line became stuck due to mechanical issues near the Clark/Lake stop, prompting the CTA to shut down power and bringing massive chaos. The derailment caused 1,500 commuters to be stuck in the subway, some for more than two hours. Seven people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

In addition to the major incidents, there was also a minor derailment on April 20, when a Red Line train was pulling out of the Howard Street terminal. No one was injured, but passengers had to leave the train.

The worst mishap on the CTA was in 1977, when an eight-car Lake-Dan Ryan train bumped a six-car Ravenswood (Brown Line) train and crashed to the ground 20 feet below at Wabash Avenue and Lake Street. Eleven people were killed in that accident, including seven passengers, two people under the train, and two others whose location was never determined.

CBS 2's Joanie Lum, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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