One year after Yellow Line crash, effects linger for riders, Skokie and CTA

The CTA instructor was crammed into a seat on the back end of a snowplow paused on the tracks when he saw the Yellow Line train round the curve headed toward them that November day nearly a year ago.

Another employee sitting next to the instructor jumped up and said, "Oh, my God, oh, my God," the instructor told federal, state and CTA officials days after the crash, a copy of a transcript of the interview shows. The train slammed into the machine and the second employee "flew out the window," even as the instructor tried to grab him, he said. The instructor hit his head and was knocked unconscious for a few seconds.

When the instructor awoke, he went to check on the employee "praying that he was still alive," he told investigators. "I could hear him screaming down there on the right-of-way."

The instructor's description of the crash is part of the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation docket, a collection of more than 2,500 pages of interview transcripts, technical documents and analysis about the Nov. 16, 2023, collision that left some two dozen passengers and employees injured. The NTSB is still investigating what caused the crash between the train and the snowplow, which was on the tracks for scheduled training, and has not yet issued its final report. But the documents that have been released so far shed light on what happened that day and the federal agency's investigation.

That includes a recently revealed finding that the operator of the train had alcohol in his system after the crash, violating federal rules. The NTSB has said investigators do not believe the operator's actions contributed to the crash, and a preliminary report found the operator hit the train's brakes in the moments leading up to the collision.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy previously said the agency was investigating the train line's 1970s-era signal system, which controls how trains move and the distance in which they stop. The NTSB was also investigating braking systems, residue from organic material on the tracks — such as leaves — and other factors, she has said.

As the NTSB has continued to investigate, the effects of the collision have lingered. The Yellow Line, also known as the Skokie Swift, was closed for seven weeks after the crash as the CTA worked to ensure the safety of the trains that carry commuters between the Rogers Park neighborhood and Skokie. Though trains resumed running in early January , they have remained limited to the CTA-mandated maximum speed of 35 mph for the line, down from 55 mph before the crash.

And Yellow Line riders have had to contend with closures since then. On a recent weekend, train service was shut down each day along the length of the line and replaced with shuttle buses, while the CTA power-washed the rails to clean them of debris like leaf residue. The CTA committed to expanded cleaning of the rails after the crash.

But riders have not fully returned to the train line this year. Through August, the most recent month for which data is available, the number of passengers entering Yellow Line stations was down 8.5% from the year before, even as overall "L" ridership was up.

"Mass transit, it's important to our future," Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen said. "I don't think the crash has deterred people from taking the Swift, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to give those who do take the Swift — and hopefully the additional people in the future who will — we have to give them some confidence that the cause, or causes, of the crash have been remedied and there's a good likelihood it's not going to be repeated."

Riders said determining a cause of the crash would make them feel more comfortable on the train, or at least allow trains to return to faster speeds. And attorneys handling some of the nine lawsuits against the CTA called for more information about what happened and the investigation.

Ria Arora, who regularly takes the Yellow Line to Loyola University, has noticed the train's slower speeds, and said it now takes her longer to get to school. Though she has to wake up and leave only a few minutes earlier each day, the extra time adds up, she said.

"Maybe if they come out with a solid reasoning (about the cause of the crash), they could maybe make it faster again," she said.

Hermalita Doss, who takes the train to work in Chicago, now takes an earlier train each day, but would rather the train travel slower for safety reasons, she said. She used to take a 6 a.m. train, but since the journey now takes longer and she needs to make her connection to a bus, she takes a 5:40 a.m. or 5:45 a.m. train.

Joseph Murphy, an attorney handling six of the lawsuits against the CTA, said some of his clients feel unsafe getting back on the train, though they may rely on public transit. Their fears were exacerbated when they learned, nearly a year after the crash, that the operator tested positive for alcohol in his system, Murphy said.

Another attorney representing a family suing the CTA, Richard Pullano, called for more transparency and accountability from the CTA, despite the ongoing federal investigation.

"We know nothing about why that snowplow was on that track when they were transporting passengers," he said. "That shocks the conscience, that we still don't know how they could have screwed that up. And the anger persists."

The CTA referred Tribune questions about the investigation to the NTSB, saying it cannot discuss the federal investigation while it is ongoing. The CTA examined tracks, signals and train operations on the Yellow Line in the weeks after the crash, and took safety measures like lowering train speeds "out of an abundance of caution," though they were not required by the NTSB, spokesperson Manny Gonzales said.

The NTSB documents expose some of the work of CTA and federal officials during the investigation. They have analyzed the snowplow, the tracks, CTA's signal system and the train cars involved in the crash — two, decade-old 5000-series cars, which is CTA's most common railcar model — and simulated tests involving that type of train. Agency officials have interviewed the train operator, employees on the snowplow, some of the passengers and first responders, and reviewed CTA policies and video from the crash, among other analysis.

The documents also paint a picture of what happened that day.

The 47-year-old train operator arrived at work around 6:30 a.m. on the day of the crash. He had worked at CTA since 2021, when he was hired to clean buses, and had been a bus operator for three months. He didn't have a regular route and called in to get his assignment, and that day was scheduled to work 12 hours with several breaks of a few hours during his shift.

The Tribune is not naming the operator or other employees interviewed during the investigation because they have not been implicated.

The operator had already made several runs that morning and at one point passed the snowplow while it was still in the rail yard. On a later run, the train rounded a curve and ahead was the snowplow on the tracks, stopped on an incline as it headed toward a rail yard at the Howard station.

A signal indicating the operator should stop briefly flashed on, and he slammed on the brake, the operator told investigators. The train was "still pulling and sliding." He jumped on the radio and sounded the horn, he said.

"Right then I knew I was — I'm, like, well, my body's going to get crushed," he said.

The train, traveling 54 mph — below the speed limit at that time of 55 — slowed to 27 mph before the collision, an earlier NTSB report found. The operator had "immediately" tried to brake after getting a stop command from the signal system.

In an analysis of CTA's signals, NTSB investigators wrote the system worked as designed, and investigators would focus on why the train did not stop in the intended distance.

Indeed, the train slid into the back end of the snowplow.

At the plow, one of the instructors tried to calm the injured employee who had flown out of the machine, who he said had a "severely cut-up" hand. He then went to check on the train operator and passengers.

On the train, the operator had tried to remove himself from where he was pinned during the collision, getting "severe lacerations" in the process. The instructor found him "severely injured" with "an extremely large, lacerated cut on his right leg, he was actually laying on top of a customer." Another instructor told him to keep the passengers calm until first responders arrived.

The arriving first responders from the police and fire departments made their way through a rail yard and across several tracks to reach the site of the collision, where the operator and passengers had a variety of injuries ranging from serious to minor.

One passenger's head had hit the front window twice, smashing the glass. His head was hit again when the door to the operator's compartment sprung open, and he had what appeared to be a seizure after he hit his head, the investigators wrote. Another man had been thrown 10 feet across the train car and collided with another passenger.

One man slid almost 5 feet forward and hit a windscreen, which left him bleeding from his head. Another man who hit a windscreen was knocked unconscious.

Nearly a year later, as the dust from the crash settles, the CTA train operator remains out of service because of his injuries, the CTA spokesman said. Any disciplinary action would not occur until he returns to service. Two of the people on the snowplow have returned to work, but the other four remain off duty.

Van Dusen said he believes the crash has not deterred Yellow Line riders, but determining a cause is paramount.

He attributes drops in Yellow Line ridership to changing commuting habits since the pandemic emptied many offices of white-collar workers. He doesn't think slower speeds have kept passengers away, though he acknowledged some are likely frustrated.

"People take the Swift because it's supposed to be swift," Van Dusen said. "I've heard a couple people joking that it's no longer the Skokie Swift, it's the 'poky swift.'"

Still, he said, keeping speeds slower is necessary to ensure the investigation and aftermath of the crash proceed appropriately. And resolving the investigation is important for transit advocates, he said.

The Yellow Line is key to Skokie's economic development, both downtown and a large tech park off the Dempster Street stop, he said. It's crucial to bringing people to Skokie for work — at places like the village's hospital or shopping centers — without adding cars to the road.

And, as the region's transit agencies face a collective $730 million fiscal cliff when federal pandemic aid dries up, finishing the investigation will help advocates make their case for more funding, Van Dusen said.

"I don't know how advocates like myself can convince the people of Skokie that we need to do something in the range of ($730 million) unless we can also guarantee people that taking mass transit is convenient and safe," he said. "So for me, that's being able to tell people, 'OK, we know what happened, it's been remedied.'"