A Metra passenger killed Wednesday morning when a BNSF train crashed into a stalled truck has been identified as a 72-year-old Downers Grove woman, officials said.
The woman is Christina Lopez, 72, of Downers Grove, according to the DuPage County coroner’s office. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday, according to the office.
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BNSF train 1242, which had originated from Downers Grove, collided with the truck about 8:10 a.m. Wednesday at Prospect Avenue, killing Lopez and injuring four others, including two passengers who had injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, according to the coroner’s office and Metra spokeswoman Meg Thomas-Reile.
Train 1242 had not been running its normal schedule and was running express to Union Station at the time, because of a mechanical failure that involved another train.
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“It was expressing. … It wasn’t stopping at Clarendon Hills,” Thomas-Reile said. “They were shuffling around some of the service, I’m sure, to catch up and get everything back to normal.”
Wednesday’s crash happened at a rail crossing just past the Clarendon Hills train station, 1 S. Prospect Ave., said Clarendon Hills Fire Chief Brian Leahy, who said a box truck about 30 to 40 feet long had stalled on the tracks.
The train’s engine was at its rear, so a train car was the first to smash into the truck, flipping it on its side and causing it to burst into flames.
“It took down some of the railroad signal gates, and this thing was fully involved in fire,” Leahy said of the truck. “It exploded — even damaging a few cars in the commuter lot.”
It was the second passenger fatality incident in Metra’s history.
