Train Wreck
I go to Chicago occasionally, for work or for pleasure. I drove there last weekend. The whole weekend was amazingly sunny and beautiful - 78 degrees in daytime. Chicago gets, like, four days a year like this.
Had a business meeting in Waukegan Saturday morning. At an unusual location: this company leased space from a municipal airport authority. The space had been built out for use as a restaurant, but the Waukegan airport is used exclusively by private jets and propeller aircraft. People who have their own planes don't hang around the airport and eat in restaurants. They drive up to their planes and get on and go.
When the meeting started, my associates said, "Well, you're going to get to see Michael Jordan - they rolled his jet out right there," pointing out the window, "and you'll see his Range Rover pull up right next to it."
The meeting ensued, but then a black Mercedes 500 pulled up, driven by an attractive woman. She got out with a small garment bag.
"Oh, that's Mrs. Jordan. She's probably going shopping in New York today."
So, I had celebrity-induced euphoria. It is true: there are people who don't live like you or me, that can get up and decide to shop in New York. So please roll out the Lear for me, do you mind?
I returned to my car to a voice mail -my sister, very upset. There was a Metra commuter train crash, lots of people hurt, and her daughter was on the train.
So, phone calls. She was already out of the accident area; her own husband is a Chicago Fire Department paramedic and took care of her. Took her home. She had minor cuts.
The train was going to downtown Chicago at 9:00 am, taking my niece to a volunteer job she has at the Chicago Art Institute. We now know that it was traveling too fast and derailed while trying to negotiate a crossover switch track. A locomotive was pushing five two-story passenger cars downtown. At the time of the derailment it was doing 69 mph. It was supposed to travel below 15 mph*.
She was in the third car from the front. The fourth car, she said, was where the worst stuff happened, like two dead people. In her car, viewed from the upper gallery, people were flying all over the car as it decelerated and tipped back and forth violently, as it left rails and skidded to a stop. The tracks run along an embankment above a city street; the street is on an embankment above one of the busiest expressways in Chicago. She was worried that these tall train cars would tip over, go down both embankments, and then end up on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
She was not hurt. She was mostly distressed to hear the screams and the confusion. People were getting broken bones reset while she watched. She talked to the paramedic who pronounced the first death. She was glad, though, that her supervisor at the Art Institute was also there, and that she would not have to worry much about her absence from her job that beautiful, sunny Saturday.
Just got off the phone with her today, Monday. She’s fine – a little stiff. Went to work Monday morning like normal. She got many phone calls, since she was interviewed on Fox news and some of her friends saw her on TV. She’s a celebrity.
I got no further details about Mrs. Jordan today, though.
---
* Man, the litigation…
Had a business meeting in Waukegan Saturday morning. At an unusual location: this company leased space from a municipal airport authority. The space had been built out for use as a restaurant, but the Waukegan airport is used exclusively by private jets and propeller aircraft. People who have their own planes don't hang around the airport and eat in restaurants. They drive up to their planes and get on and go.
When the meeting started, my associates said, "Well, you're going to get to see Michael Jordan - they rolled his jet out right there," pointing out the window, "and you'll see his Range Rover pull up right next to it."
The meeting ensued, but then a black Mercedes 500 pulled up, driven by an attractive woman. She got out with a small garment bag.
"Oh, that's Mrs. Jordan. She's probably going shopping in New York today."
So, I had celebrity-induced euphoria. It is true: there are people who don't live like you or me, that can get up and decide to shop in New York. So please roll out the Lear for me, do you mind?
I returned to my car to a voice mail -my sister, very upset. There was a Metra commuter train crash, lots of people hurt, and her daughter was on the train.
So, phone calls. She was already out of the accident area; her own husband is a Chicago Fire Department paramedic and took care of her. Took her home. She had minor cuts.
The train was going to downtown Chicago at 9:00 am, taking my niece to a volunteer job she has at the Chicago Art Institute. We now know that it was traveling too fast and derailed while trying to negotiate a crossover switch track. A locomotive was pushing five two-story passenger cars downtown. At the time of the derailment it was doing 69 mph. It was supposed to travel below 15 mph*.
She was in the third car from the front. The fourth car, she said, was where the worst stuff happened, like two dead people. In her car, viewed from the upper gallery, people were flying all over the car as it decelerated and tipped back and forth violently, as it left rails and skidded to a stop. The tracks run along an embankment above a city street; the street is on an embankment above one of the busiest expressways in Chicago. She was worried that these tall train cars would tip over, go down both embankments, and then end up on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
She was not hurt. She was mostly distressed to hear the screams and the confusion. People were getting broken bones reset while she watched. She talked to the paramedic who pronounced the first death. She was glad, though, that her supervisor at the Art Institute was also there, and that she would not have to worry much about her absence from her job that beautiful, sunny Saturday.
Just got off the phone with her today, Monday. She’s fine – a little stiff. Went to work Monday morning like normal. She got many phone calls, since she was interviewed on Fox news and some of her friends saw her on TV. She’s a celebrity.
I got no further details about Mrs. Jordan today, though.
---
* Man, the litigation…
posted by John Bernat @ 7:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home