We continue to clean out my late mother's home and my wife discovered two old Chicago newspapers I'd set aside as a teen. On the morning of October 30th, 1972, the Illinois Central suffered a terrible crash of commuter trains in electrified territory at 27th Street in Chicago when a train of old heavyweight mu cars telescoped the rear of a train of new lightweight bi-levels. The lightweight train overshot the platform which was a flag stop. Amazingly, the lightweight train stopped and made a back up move to the platform, and without flag protection. The backup move set a restricting signal in the block, but the heavyweight train had already passed the signal and had no knowledge that the block was occupied.
I'm surprised that a flag stop was provided for, considering that the station is located on a train-heavy multiple-track line close in to Chicago. Then of course, making a back-up move without flag protection was an appalling breach of rules. Newspaper articles were so much different then. The cause of the wreck was known and published almost immediately. These days it would be "under investigation" and nothing would appear for months. Also, the home addresses of all of the victims and everyone interviewed appeared in these papers. It isn't apparent from my photo, but papers were much larger too, making them far easier to read. I think the cost was ten cents!
