Round Lake Beach man, 56, identified as victim in fatal Elgin train crash
A 56-year-old Round Lake Beach man has been identified as the driver killed last month in a train crash involving a locomotive and a landscaping truck in Elgin, according to the Kane County coroner.
Martin Martinez Jimenez died, and two others were injured on Oct. 23 when a Union Pacific locomotive collided with their truck at the State Street crossing north of Locust Street at about 6:30 a.m.
Jimenez was driving a Ford F-250 that was pulling a trailer owned by Cornerstone Partners, a landscaping company that serves Elgin and multiple Western suburbs.
A preliminary report recently released by the National Transportation Safety Board indicated that the driver of the truck had little advance notice of the oncoming locomotive.
According to the NTSB, a review of the locomotive’s event and image recorders showed traffic traversing the crossing in the seconds before the collision.
It wasn’t until the train was near the edge of the crossing that its whistle sounded for the first time and the crossing’s warning devices activated, according to the report.