Jun 3, 2008 5:46 am US/Central
1 Hospitalized After Red Line Train Derails
14 Passengers Evacuated, Sent Walking 2 Blocks To 95th Street Terminal
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A CTA Red Line train derailed on the city's South Side early Tuesday morning, less than a week after a derailment on another line sent 14 people to hospitals.
One person suffered minor injuries in the Tuesday morning incident.
As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, the derailment happened around 2 a.m. on the Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line. Fourteen passengers were on the southbound train as it approached the 95th Street terminal.
The back wheels of the third of a four-car train were off the tracks at 93rd Street.
The Fire Department had to evacuate all the passengers, who walked along the tracks to the train terminal.
"The train was approximately at 93rd and the Dan Ryan, so we walked about two blocks," said David L. Walton of the Chicago Fire Department.
A man who was traveling on the train said he thought the train operator may have "overshot" a switch or light and when the operator backed the train up, the train derailed. The exact cause is under investigation.
One person, a customer on board the train, was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers in Evergreen Park in good condition for unknown injuries, Roccasalva said.
Crews worked on the derailed train car for about two hours, before it was re-railed and put back into service.
Service had been fully restored by 4:15 a.m., after the CTA ran shuttle buses between the 87th and 95th Street stations for a period of time, and were even able to use a train to run a shuttle to the 95th Street station.
The Tuesday morning derailment comes just six days after a Green Line derailed near 59th Street and Prairie Avenue, sending 14 people to hospitals. The accident last Wednesday was caused by a train operator who ran a stop signal, then overrode a trip device that would have automatically cut power to the train.
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 and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.
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