New details have been discovered about what caused the crash of a CTA Yellow Line train a year ago; pursuing injured passengers, searching for answers

CHICAGO (WLS) — This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of one of the worst train accidents in the Chicago Transit Authority’s recent history.

On November 16, 2023, a CTA Yellow Line train collided with snowplow equipment training on the track during a clear morning.

What went wrong with Train 593? The ABC7 I-Team has new data pointing to some answers, including a list of factors stemming from an outdated brake design on the train and a residue on the tracks caused by crushed leaves.

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The experience of that day still haunts some of the passengers on board from a year ago, including Phillip Rogers.

“One minute I’m just sitting there, everything’s fine, and then BANG. I hit my head on the train window and shattered it,” Rogers says.

In the fog of what would be diagnosed as a concussion, Rogers says he managed to take a photo of the smashed window that hit his head that November morning.

Rogers was in the second car of train 593 and he said he immediately began helping other shocked and injured passengers.

“It was just kind of chaos,” Rogers said. “I wanted to get off the train, there was a lot of blood.”

According to Chicago Fire Dept officials that day, Rogers was among 38 injured, including children and CTA employees. No one was killed, but six people were seriously injured.

Steven Helmer and his wife were on the 593 train that morning visiting their daughter and twin granddaughters. The family was on their way to the center when they said the unexpected and unthinkable had happened.

“There was just a loud bang toward the front of the train car, and suddenly we were all flying through the air or thrown to the ground,” Helmer said. “We were thrown into the air and the twins were in a stroller. Luckily they were strapped into a stroller so they were falling up and down when the impact happened.”

Helmer said his entire family suffered injuries from the crash: he had to undergo surgery on his elbow and his wife’s teeth were damaged.

Helmer and Rogers are among the crash survivors who are suing the CTA, claiming the agency’s negligence led to the Train 593 crash.

In court filings, the CTA has denied negligence.

“This was a very, very bad accident,” Rogers told the I-Team. “I kept thinking, ‘How did this happen?'”

Over the past year, the I-Team has been working to answer that question.

Repeated requests to speak to CTA President Dorval Carter, Jr. including a personal request from Certified Mail, have all been ignored.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says the investigation into the crash could take another year. But through the NTSB, the I-Team obtained hundreds of documents from regulators and investigators looking for clues.

In an initial technical investigation report after the accident, CTA’s chief engineer concluded that the train’s signaling system should have warned the engineer to initiate braking earlier, allowing a greater distance to stop before colliding with the snow plow equipment.

However, this did not happen because outdated procedures were relied on.

“(T)The 1970s braking distance design did not match CTA’s current braking distance criteria,” the report notes. “The maximum safe braking distance available would only have led to a ‘safe stop’ if the braking conditions had been virtually perfect.”

But conditions that day were less than perfect, compromised by the operator’s obstructed view of what was in a bend of the tracks, as well as “crushed leaves,” the CTA investigation said.

CTA staff included in their report a photo showing that “residues of leaf material had been ‘crushed’ into the leaves (train) track head.”

Although the train’s emergency brakes were engaged, CTA’s chief engineer determined, “The rails on the descent approaching the collision site appear to be compromised… due to a contamination believed to be related to broken leaves .”

Professor PS Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reviewed the findings and says there was not one cause for the accident, but several.

“This is a confluence of many different factors that all came together at exactly the wrong time,” Sriraj said. “We have a braking distance problem, we have leaf debris, we have obstructed visibility and the most inexcusable thing is that the snow plow is on the same track as the train.”

CTA personnel should have been aware of the snowplow training on the tracks that day, given a “Rail Service Bulletin” sent out the day before and newly obtained by the I-Team.

The bulletin, which the CTA shared with NTSB investigators, was sent to “all affected” employees, informing employees that the snow locomotive was “authorized to operate on the Yellow Line” during the crash.

Attorney Richard Pullano, who represents Stephen Helmer, said the fact that the snowplow was training on live tracks is deeply troubling.

‘That’s what I think when you look at it (the CTAs) conduct, I think the best description is gross negligence,” Pullano said. “It was blatant. It was a catastrophic failure of a host of events that should never have happened. It shocks the conscience.”

These crash factors are not the only points being investigated.

As the I-Team first reported last month, the engineer behind the wheel of Train 593 had alcohol in his system higher than allowed by federal regulations.

The I-Team found that detail hidden in an NTSB report on the crash.

An agency spokesperson said that while the investigation is ongoing, they “have not found that the operator’s actions contributed to the accident.”

Attorney Joseph Murphy, who represents many of the injured passengers on Train 593, including Rogers, doesn’t buy it.

“I respectfully disagree with the NTSB,” Murphy said. “If you’re responsible for carrying hundreds or thousands of passengers a day, and you have a minor delay that may have been caused by alcohol, that’s human error.”

Injured passengers who spoke to the I-Team were angry that it took nearly a year for details about the train operator’s blood alcohol content to become public, and that they were offended that they had not heard this from the CTA itself.

“The CTA needs to be held accountable for this,” Murphy said.

The CTA referred all I-Team questions about the crash investigation to the NTSB, but said the operator of Train 593 that day may face disciplinary action because of those alcohol tests when they return to work.

“In this case, the operator is currently inactive due to his injuries from the crash,” Gonzales told the I-Team. “If there is employment, it will occur once he returns to active status.”

In response to the I-Team’s questions about the outdated braking distance design, Manny Gonzales, a spokesperson for the CTA, said, “The design calculations for all lines installed twenty or more years ago have been reviewed and validated to ensure safe braking distances.”

As for the issue of leaf debris playing a role in the train’s inability to stop that day, Gonzales said, “The CTA has begun an active cleaning program that is seasonal and tied to the leaf debris. In addition, we are the equipment that this is used to re-evaluate type of work.”

“We have also provided staff with additional training specifically on how to inspect any accumulations of debris on the tracks and how to properly report it so it can be addressed,” Gonzales said.

Rogers told the I-Team that he still relies on the CTA to get around the city, but is now being extra careful about his safety.

“I’m not afraid to step on it, but I am careful when I’m sitting near anything I could hit my head on,” Rogers told the I-Team. “It did do some damage to my life.”