 Playing difficult videos are financially supported by the generosity of my Patreon and YouTube members. Members get early, ad-free access to videos, usually Monday or Tuesday before it's released on the main channel. You can also get other perks depending on the pledge, including your name at the end of the video. Right, well thanks for listening to me talk, back to the normal scheduled dose of WellMeTalking. It is 7am on the 25th October 1995 and a school bus is doing its rounds in the town of Fox River Grove, Illinois, USA. This morning the bus is being driven by a substitute driver. It drives along the Algonquin Road, across the railroad crossing and stops at a red light waiting to join US Route 14. But what Patricia Cattencamp hadn't realised was that three inches of the rear of her bus was still over the running line of the railway and a train was soon to approach. This area would lead to one of the USA's worst crossing disasters. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today we're looking at the Fox River bus train crash. Crossing the line. Ever since railways spread across the globe, there has always been a problem and it comes from this method of transportation's greatest strength. You see trains are very efficient. This comes down to the lack of friction between the wheel and the rail. This is great for transporting goods and people but not for building railways around obstructions. This is why tunnels are constructed, viaducts, lick across, valleys and importantly for this video roads have to be modified to accommodate trains. Ideally roads are diverted with bridges and underpasses but this isn't always practical or cost effective. So what do you do if you can't go under or well or over? Well you go across. This is where a level crossing comes into play. Needless to say this creates a conflict point between vehicular traffic and trains but it's not always as simple as car cross track. Sometimes the car needs to join another road afterwards. Imagine a t-junction or a four way junction. Here we have not only the level crossing but also the traffic lights for the road junction. Let me draw a few ways this can be achieved. Now this first one stops the road vehicle before a level crossing. This isn't very efficient. The next one is more efficient with space. The road vehicles are being brought right up to the junction and across the train tracks but can you see a potential issue here? Well this will be the whole bone of contention. We'll look at this later on in the video. Let's look at what happens when a train approaches a level crossing and how this is communicated to road users. Now first of all I should say if you want to get into a fight with a train you will lose. Their biggest strength is also their weakness in that low friction which makes trains efficient but also very difficult to stop quickly. That's why trains usually take priority over road users which is why you should never jump the barrier. That train even if it sees you ain't stopping. So for today's video I'll be only looking at a type of crossing called an interconnected crossing. That is a railroad crossing that is near a vehicular junction. As such the traffic light and the train crossing are meant to be synchronised so that a vehicle won't get caught on the level crossing. When a train approaches a crossing a microprocessor is used to calculate the time it will take to reach the crossing. This is triggered by an approach track circuit. Once activated the microprocessor takes roughly four seconds to calculate the train's speed. The system has to legally give at least 20 seconds warning to road users that a train is approaching. In reality and in particular in our example today this is set between 25 and 30 seconds. When the train is 20 seconds out from the crossing automatic warning lights flash and a warning sound is made shortly after the crossing gates lower. When the microprocessor is initially triggered it sends a signal to any traffic junctions affected by the train crossing where the traffic system will set the lights to be able to clear the crossing. For the purpose of this video that signal is sent to the traffic lights Algonquin US route 14 junction. Whilst we're here let's have a look at the history of this junction. Well prior to 1989 the US 14 northwestern highway was a two lane road with one lane in each direction. Traffic from the Algonquin road only had to stop sign to join the main road and roughly 60 feet between the railroad crossing and the main road. This offered plenty of space for traffic to wait to join the main road all good but US 14 was having traffic issues. As such a project was undertaken by the Illinois Department of Transport to widen US 14 to a four lane highway. In order to not encroach on businesses on the northern side of the road the project would nip some of the land between the railroad and the road. This reduced that 60 feet beyond the crossing to just 30 feet. On top of this the stop sign wasn't up to scratch for regulating traffic onto the highway so a traffic light system was installed. This was all new and shiny but had a couple of flaws the first being a sensor to detect a vehicle to cycle the traffic lights on the Algonquin road. This was placed after the level crossing meaning if you were in a long vehicle you would have to cross the tracks. If you don't that red light will never change. The next issue was that depending on whether the pedestrian crossing had been activated the time between the green light on the Algonquin road to cycle back round to green was between 18 to 22 seconds which when combined with the 20 seconds warning the level crossing was legally obliged to give gave only between two and minus two seconds for a vehicle to clear the junction. I can guess you see an issue here although at the particular junction the warning sequence for the railroad was set at 25 seconds thus allowing between seven and three seconds for vehicles to clear the tracks which is still pretty rubbish. Trains along the line can travel up to 70 miles an hour and are operated by Union Pacific with metro trains running passenger services and this leaves us neatly on to the disaster. Disaster. It is 6.30 in the morning of the 25th of October 1995 and school bus driver Kattenkamp is checking over her 71 seat school bus for the morning's pickups. Departing from the depot at 6.35am she makes her way to the first pickup roughly 20 minutes away. This is her first time driving this particular route the reason being that she was a substitute driver who normally worked in the office day to day. Roughly around the same time Metra trains 624 is at Crystal Lake station some 6.5 miles away to the north east. 624 is an express service bound for Chicago and is comprised of six passenger cars a cab car and a locomotive. At 7am Metra 624 departs Crystal Lake it picks up speed as it non-stops carry station. Meanwhile Kattenkamp is navigating around Fox River Grove heading along the Algonquin road northbound. She currently has 35 students aboard. At around 7.10 in the morning and 3,080 feet from the crossing the Metra train triggers the microprocessor and it begins to calculate the speed of its approach. It is running at roughly 66 miles an hour and the system arrives at the conclusion but it can wait eight seconds safely before initiating the crossing warning system. Around the same time the bus makes it to the level crossing. On the other side is a red light for the junction onto US 14. She maneuvers the bus into the left turn only lane and pulls up to the traffic lights. The rear of her bus is overhanging the train tracks but she hasn't realised. The Metra train is now over 2,400 feet from the crossing. The railway system notifies the highway traffic system from which begins to change the lights on US 14 to red but first pedestrian traffic must be given time to clear the intersection. Ten seconds later the pedestrian sequence is over and the traffic lights on US 14 change to yellow. Soon after they then change to red allowing the green light sequence to start for the northbound Algonquin road traffic lights. The bus driver becomes distracted. There is some ruckus at the back of her bus. What she hasn't realised is that the crossing barrier has come down onto the roof. Children at the rear are shouting for the driver to move forward. By now the Metra train is just 700 feet away. The traffic light for the bus has now turned green but attempting to see what the noise was this hasn't been noticed by the bus driver. The driver of the Metra train now realising the school bus isn't moving applies the emergency brakes but it's not enough to stop the few hundreds of tonnes worth of rolling stock short of the crossing. The train is now at 60 miles an hour but disaster is unavoidable. At roughly 7.12 in the morning the train collides with the school bus. The body and frame of the bus were separated throwing the wreckage across the US 14 junction. Five students lost their lives instantly in the impact with two more critically injured. The remaining passengers and driver are also injured varying from serious to minor injuries. Almost immediately the first 911 calls came in and the police, fire and ambulance services were dispatched to the crash scene. The local hospital dispatched two doctors at half past seven and in total 90 emergency workers would attend the crash. Sadly two more students would pass away from their injuries after the crash later in hospital. The collision shocked the local community and questions had to be answered as to how could seven children be killed on a seemingly normal morning. Well the accident would fall under the purview of the NTSB which would uncover the truly dangerous background to the Algonquin Road rail crossing. Investigation. Obviously the first person to interview was the bus driver. Luckily it was pretty straightforward as she had only received minor injuries. Delving into her driving background she seemingly had no issues having a school bus permit since 1987. During her time working for the school district she had received multiple letters of commendation. Her personal driving record was also clean as since 1989 had actually been in charge of hiring new drivers and overseeing their training. During her interview she stated about her position on the road. I proceeded across the tracks because of the light was red and I knew I had to go up there and trip the sensor in order for the light to turn green to proceed through the intersection. It was like moments like that it happened. It's easy to place the blame solely at the driver for not realizing the position of her bus. Obviously this was a very major factor but a crossing itself was so terribly designed it's a wonder there weren't any incidents since 1989. Except there were around 20 between 1989 and 1995. Many are purely drivers being idiotic for example a DUI where in 1994 a truck crashed into one of the barriers. But there are a couple of worrying trends where the barriers had closed on long vehicles whilst waiting at a red light. A tractor trailer waiting to turn left onto US-14 was struck by the barrier in 1993. The truck moved off on its green traffic light avoiding a collision. This pointed investigators to the potential problem with the way that the junction interacted with the rail crossing. The NTSB would conclude in its report. The NTSB determines that the probable cause of the collision was that the bus driver had positioned a school bus so that it encroached upon the railroad tracks because of the failure of the Illinois Department of Transport recognizing the short queuing area on the northbound Algonquin road and to take corrective action. The Illinois Department of Transport to recognize the insufficient time of a green signal indication for vehicles on the northbound Algonquin road before the arrival of a train at the crossing and the transportation joint agreement school district to identify route hazards. The blame was spread out between the driver, the department of transport and the school district and basically it all came down to a small oversight of a few feet beyond the at grade level crossing. The bus was over the line by just three inches but the metro train had over hung the rails by three feet. But even though just a few feet it turned out to be a deadly error. The school district reviewed all its routes reducing the need to make crossings at the railway line and reviewed its driver training process. The NTSB recommended that the Illinois Department of Transport review its crossings to make sure that vehicles had enough space and time to clear them. Roughly one month after the crash civil suits were brought against the school board and Union Pacific and Metra. It would result in $27.3 million dollars paid to victims. Now I'm going to rate this junction as a dumpster fire and a six on my legacy scale. This is a plain difficult production. 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