Daily Herald opinion: The lesson in ‘a perfect storm’: Preliminary report emphasizes the unpredictable conditions that make every rail crossing a risk

A preliminary report on a deadly train-truck collision in Elgin last October identifies a number of factors that may have been at fault. Unfortunately, the issues that one expert called “a perfect storm of problems” also may make it more difficult for regulators to identify steps that can be taken to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again.

The crash occurred at 6:29 a.m. last Oct. 23, when a Union Pacific locomotive struck a landscaping truck at the State Street crossing. The driver of the truck, Martin Martinez Jimenez, 56, of Round Lake Beach, was killed and two of his passengers were seriously injured.

As our senior transportation writer Marni Pyke reported on Monday, a Federal Railway Administration Safety Bulletin cited two primary factors in the collision. One, the gates and lights at the crossing did not engage in time to warn Jimenez that it was not safe to cross the tracks. And second, the crew of the locomotive, which was not pulling any train cars, did not follow rules for approaching road crossings “without the minimum number of axles needed to reliably activate grade crossing warning systems.”

Crew fatigue may have been a factor in the latter case. The conductor and engineer on the locomotive both told investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board that they were tired and stressed when the accident occurred near the end of a 10-hour shift, although UP officials said in a statement that the crew “met federal work-rest requirements.”

Additionally, the regulators are studying whether a condition called “loss of shunt” may have contributed to the tragedy. Loss of shunt applies to such factors as a low number of axles on the train or material on the rails that can impede the ability of the electronics system to activate the crossing gates and warning lights.

The NTSB has not yet issued its final report, yet the safety experts have no shortage of leads to help them reconstruct the collision. Indeed, it appears so far that no single issue is at fault.

“Unfortunately,” rail expert and DePaul University Professor Joseph Schwieterman told Pyke, “the truck driver lost his life due to a perfect storm of problems.”

It could be at least somewhat reassuring if some single factor could be identified and corrected, but Schwieterman’s assessment emphasizes the challenge regulators face in producing recommendations for preventing such a tragedy in the future. In this case, we are left to remember that the potential for unpredictable circumstances demands special care every time one approaches a rail crossing, even when a situation may seem familiar and safe.