UPDATES WITH DETAILS
(LAKE BARRINGTON) A person was critically injured when a Metra train struck a vehicle Wednesday evening near northwest suburban Lake Barrington.
Outbound train No. 653 struck the vehicle about 7:45 p.m. near U.S. Route 14 and Kelsey Road as it headed west toward the Fox River Grove station, according to Metra and Sgt. Christopher Covelli with the Lake County sheriff’s office.
The vehicle was about 100 yards southeast of the Kelsey Road crossing “in an area a car wouldn’t ordinarily be,” Covelli said. The driver appeared to have been struck after getting out of his vehicle prior to the crash.
The driver was taken to a hospital in critical condition, Covelli said.
Inbound and outbound trains on the Union Pacific Northwest line were halted, but were moving again by 10 p.m., Metra said.
Train No. 653 was supposed to arrive at the Harvard station shortly after 8 p.m., but frustrated riders reported they were still stuck inside the train as of midnight.
Earlier in the night, Metra asked riders to move to the last three cars of the train in anticipation of being allowed to switch to a new train, but that plan was never carried out, rider Ed Clair said. His phone and computer had since run out of battery.
“There has been no opportunity to get off,” Clair said on a borrowed cell phone. “We’ve been stuck here. No food, no water for over four hours. How can they allow this?”