7 Killed, 69 Injured in Collision of Commuter Trains in Indiana

Two commuter trains sideswiped each other Monday morning on a narrow stretch of track, killing seven people in a mangled pile of metal.

Sixty-nine people were injured, an official said.

The eastbound and westbound trains collided at 7:37 a.m. PST, said John Parsons, spokesman for Northern Indiana Commuter Transit District.

“The glass was flying. It was a tremendous impact,” passenger Margaret McNeill, who was uninjured, said.

Fire Chief Benjamin Perry said 69 people were injured, two critically.

One of the train’s engineers had been disciplined for his role as a dispatcher in a 1985 crash on the same line in Gary, railroad General Manager Gerald Hanas said. That crash injured 85 people.

Hanas said it is too soon to tell if human error or a signal malfunction is to blame for Monday’s crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

By early afternoon, rescuers believed they had removed everyone trapped in the wreckage. The front car of each train was mangled and the metal on one side ripped away.

“The trains actually sideswiped . . . which caused the skin on the walls to peel inward,” Perry said.

“We found one guy between two people. The person behind him was dead and the person in front of him was dead, but he was alive. It was an act of God. He’s a very lucky person,” Perry said.

Rescuers passed stretchers through gaping holes in one of the cars to remove the dead and injured, some of whom had been trapped in the wreckage. The rescue workers had to use ropes to pull themselves hand-over-hand up the steep embankment, which was dusted with snow.

The stretch of tracks is controlled by a signal designed to allow only one train at a time to cross the one-track “gantlet bridge.” The accident happened just west of the trestle and not on the span itself. It was unclear if both trains were moving or if one was stopped waiting to cross the trestle.

The two trains were a No. 7 eastbound from Chicago and a No. 12 westbound from South Bend, Ind., Parsons said.

The commuter line has electric cars that carry workers to and from Chicago daily.