Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

I was playing around with Google Maps and decided to check out the infamous railroad crossing in Fox River Grove, Illinois, on Algonquin Rd. where the school bus was hit by a Metra commuter train in October 1995, killing seven teenagers. Some time in the mid-2010s, the mechanical bell that was there at the time of the accident was replaced with a General Signals e-bell... Since the rest of the equipment doesn't appear to have been changed much (aside from adding traffic lights after the accident and upgrading the flashers to LED years later), perhaps the mechanical bell failed and so they had to replace it (like the numerous Safetran mechanical crossing bells that have been failing along the MBTA commuter rail lines in my area and ending up replaced with WCH e-bells.)

At the same intersection, also note the sign below pedestrian crossing signals... Of course, it was the pedestrian signals' flashing clearance phase that extended the traffic light preemption cycle triggered by trains that led to the infamous accident, but even so, those signs were added to warn pedestrians that if a train approaches the railroad crossing, the pedestrian signal cycle would be shortened. At the time of the accident, the intersection had older incandescent pedestrian signals with the words "DONT WALK" and "WALK", but they have since been replaced with modern LED pedestrian signals with the hand/man symbols and countdown timers.

The signals have actually changed a little bit, the non-cantilever signal has been replaced. In pictures, it had the old Griswold EM-style gates. That is now gone, looks to have been replaced in the early 2000s by the looks of the signal. The cantilever signal (aside from the bell) looks pretty much identical, the gate mech is the same one (unless they replaced it with another safetran.)

I passed by there in 2007 and snagged a quick picture for the site, although unfortunately I didn't capture the near, mast signal very well. You can see the mechanical bell on the cantilever, though.

Coincidentally, the only other fatal accident in the database for this crossing occurred 11 years to the day after the infamous 1995 Metra vs. bus crash.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Illinois/A-K/ ... Algonquin/

AndyWS wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:40 pm I passed by there in 2007 and snagged a quick picture for the site, although unfortunately I didn't capture the near, mast signal very well. You can see the mechanical bell on the cantilever, though.

Coincidentally, the only other fatal accident in the database for this crossing occurred 11 years to the day after the infamous 1995 Metra vs. bus crash.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Illinois/A-K/ ... Algonquin/