CHICAGO — It could be up to five days before service resumes on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Yellow Line following Thursday’s collision between a CTA train and a piece of maintenance equipment.
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news briefing today (Friday, Nov. 17) that it could take that long for the NTSB’s team of investigators to finish processing the scene, and service is likely to remain suspended until that NTSB work is finished.
Some 38 people were injured, with 23 requiring hospital care, after the train struck a snow-removal machine near the Howard Street station in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the city’s North Side [see “Chicago L train hits maintenance equipment …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 16, 2023].
“Our team wants to see everything as it was, take pictures that will help determine what additional information they may need eventually,” Homendy said. “Once that documentation occurs we can move the rail cars and equipment to a secure storage location that CTA owns.”
The NTSB has 14 staff members on site, including one dedicated solely to assisting victims and families.
The agency usually produces a preliminary report, establishing basic facts of the incident, within about two weeks, but a final report determining probable cause and leading to any safety recommendations is likely to take more than a year.
A video of the full briefing is available here.
14 people and 5 days! Efficient government work. The lawyers have already determined who is at fault. Just ask them.
Of course, this is an alarming accident in which the lawyers involved will definitely not miss every detail quickly.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün