Hotline #757

Two South Shore commuter trains collided the morning of January 18 at Gary, Ind., killing seven passengers and injuring 69. The trains collided at the end of a stretch of gantlet track that passes over a narrow 1908 bridge over Conrail's former Fort Wayne line. A gantlet track occurs where a double track narrows down by overlapping the tracks, rather than using switches and a single track. There are signals at both ends of the South Shore gantlet. Both engineers said they had green signals, but the eastbound engineer said his signal suddenly turned to red at a point where it was too late to come to a complete stop. The National Transportation Safety Board, however, said the signal system appeared to be working and is continuing to investigate.

Accounts of the crash were grisly, with reports of mangled victims, including one woman who was decapitated. All seven appeared to have died instantly. They ranged in age from a 10-year-old boy to a 71-year-old woman. It was the worst Chicago-area wreck since a South Shore engineer was killed in a 1987 collision.

Federico Pena yesterday was confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of Transportation.

President Clinton has decided to stick with the deficit reduction guidelines from the 1990 budget agreement, rather than go back to restrictive Gramm-Rudman measures. House Speaker Thomas Foley (D.-Wash.) told NBC's Today Show that he favored a higher gas tax as a partial solution, but Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D.-Me.) opposed that, saying a gas tax increase is regressive.

The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission has begun an effort to preserve the Conrail line between Gary and Fort Wayne for future use as part of a Chicago-Fort Wayne high-speed rail line, according to the Journal of Commerce. Conrail wants to abandon it.

The Chief Operating Officer of VIA Rail Canada, Jim Roach, resigned recently.

Transport 2000 Canada last week announced the winners of its Lemon and Orange Prizes. The Lemon went to Canadian Minister of Transport Jean Corbeil for lack of leadership in the current airline crisis. The Orange went to Quebec Minister of Transport Sam Elkas for his support of Montreal commuter rail and his defense of the VIA Rail station at Levis. A certificate of merit went to Nova Scotia for having the lowest rail diesel fuel tax and a demerit to Saskatchewan for having the highest -- even higher than for trucks.

The Minnesota Transportation Commission last week formally proposed a reconstruction plan for I-35W between Minneapolis and Bloomington/96th Street that includes light rail in the media. The City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County had threatened to go to court if the state proposal did not include light rail. Construction could start in 1997, but no funding source has been identified. Selection of this corridor south of downtown Minneapolis surprised some observers, because another corridor between Minneapolis and St. Paul had long been the front runner.

The Berkeley, Cal., chapter of the Grey Panthers senior citizens group has passed a resolution to oppose any new development that is not transit-accessible, to give transit vehicles right-of-way over private automobiles, and to expand paratransit. The Gray Panthers wrote, "It shouldn't be necessary for [Americans] to drive cars for them to have equal access to jobs, housing and other activities now located where public transit is inadequate." NARP agrees.

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the end of service on the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee line. It was prematurely abandoned just to get cash scrap value for its new owners. We are confident that if the North Shore had survived a few more years, Milwaukee would still have electric train service today.