NTSB: O'Hare Blue Line Crash Cost $9.1 Million In Damages

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 8, 2014 2:00PM

National Transportation Safety Board investigators amended their damage estimate from last month’s crash of a Blue Line train at the O’Hare Airport station. Investigators now estimate the total damages at $9.1 million, up from $6 million.

A preliminary report released by the NTSB Monday revealed the train was moving too fast and the trip mechanism intended to stop the train’s emergency braking system was “too short to stop the train. Investigators estimate the train was traveling at 26 mph when it jumped the platform and stopped halfway up an escalator.

CTA officials announced Monday they reviewed the trip arms at three other stations where a rail line dead-ends—the Orange Line Midway station, Brown Line Kimball stop and Green Line Cottage Grove terminal—and made changes to the trip arm at Cottage Grove.

Meanwhile, the union representing Brittney Haywood, the rail operator who dozed off at the controls of the train that crashed, is not happy with CTA’s quick decision to fire her last Friday. Robert Kelly of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 said Haywood is on “medical disability” and “my problem with this is they fired her before they even got” the NTSB’s preliminary report.