By Finn Farmer
Framing Chicago’s central business district in weathered steel, the CTA elevated train system is one of Chicago’s most unique and iconic features. Ferrying scores of Chicagoans to all manner of business and pleasure day in and day out, the network’s safety and reliability is seldom called into question. However, on the fateful Friday evening of February 4, 1977, commuters were plunged into an unprecedented and horrifying disaster which reverberates to this day.
Typically operating clockwise on the Loop’s inner track, the Evanston Express service (today’s Purple Line) was running counter-clockwise around the outer track that day due to mechanical problems. This meant it was sharing track with the Ravenswood Line (now the Brown Line) and the Lake-Dan Ryan Line (containing parts of the present-day Green and Red lines), causing system-wide delays. This congestion meant that elevated trains were often required to stop and wait for other lines to clear out of a station before pulling in.
This was the case at the Lake/Wabash intersection around 5:25 PM on February 4th, 1977. While Ravenswood train was stopped just west of State/Lake station waiting for an Evanston Express run to exit the platform, a Lake/Dan Ryan run approached the corner. With its conductor failing to heed the stop signal, the trains smashed into each other just short of the turn. Making matters worse, the negligent conductor continued to apply power after the collision, forcing the Ravenswood cars against the banked corner of the track and upwards, ultimately sending the first three cars off the rails and into the intersection.
The scene on the ground, as described by various newspaper articles from the days following the incident, was nothing short of horrific. As literal tons of twisted metal spilled out over the intersection of Lake and Wabash, mortified passerby alternately stood stunned by the carnage and rushed to help the hundreds of victims.
“People were frantic, scared, crying, and hollering. Some people were so scared, they wouldn’t even move. It was like a madhouse, ” remarked one bystander to the Tribune.
“The victims were lying in rows in the streets, and some were pinned in the cars,” said another. “Some of them were obviously dead. I saw one blonde girl, about 20, lying in a pool of blood and there was nothing we could do for her.”
Other firsthand accounts describe scores of moaning, bloodied victims laying in front of the nearby (now defunct) Lakeview Restaurant, of limbs dangling motionlessly out of shattered train car windows, of disoriented commuters hauntedly remarking upon the possible deaths of fellow passengers. The CTA has seen its fair share of accidents over the years, but the scale of this derailment was unprecedented and unimaginable. On the evening of February 4, 1977, a busy intersection in the heart of one of America’s most picturesque cities was turned into a bloody, chaotic apocalypse straight out of a disaster movie.
As emergency services triaged victims and transported the gravely injured to multiple area hospitals, Mayor Michael Bilandic arrived on the scene to offer consolatory words. In the wake of another high-profile derailment the year prior, his administration became increasingly subject to calls to invest in the aging rail infrastructure. In the wake of the 1977 disaster, President Jimmy Carter pledged federal support to restoration efforts, but this money was never dispersed. When offered $400 million in federal funding to build a Franklin Street subway and perform updates system wide, Bilandic declined. The Carter administration, short on cash, forced Bilandic to choose between using the funds for the CTA or his other pet project, the Crosstown Expressway, and he refused to concede on either. Callous and illustrative of broader trends in mismanagement and corruption in the CTA and municipal leadership? Perhaps, but investigations ultimately concluded that the accident to be the fault of classic human error.
In his eight years at the CTA, the motorman that day, Stephen A. Martin, had accumulated a long track record of safety violations, even being involved in a previous derailment in 1974. Initially suspected of being under the influence of cannabis on the day of the accident, the conductor was found by toxicology reports to have been sober during the crash. An investigation by the CTA and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that Martin had been grossly negligent. Apparently, during his approach, he’d seen a flashing red signal on the track which he believed indicated the need to merely reduce his speed beneath 15mph rather than reach a complete stop. Martin was ultimately fired from the CTA, and despite the aforementioned failure to secure a massive federal grant, the agency took preventative steps in the wake of the disaster: installing barriers around the elevated tracks to prevent wayward trains from crashing to the street, a more rigid system of discipline and retraining for employees with safety violations, and a redoubled emphasis on the dangers of distracted conductors. Even so, this disaster could’ve been easily prevented on multiple levels.
Of the upwards of 180 victims of this tragedy, 11 individuals lost their lives. A Chicago Tribune piece from the day after the accident identifies the fallen as: Patricia Bowden, 23, of Oak Park; Robert Ferbrache, 29, and Kathleen Ferbache, 25, of Oak Park; Lawrence Hopkins, 26, of Chicago; Edward Jaross, 55, of Elmhurst; Margaret Ann Klug, 28, of River Forest; Marion McKeag, 45, of Forest Park; Domingo Panganibam, 35, of Chicago; Loretta Wojs, 43, of Chicago; Gail Wolniewicz, 23, of Forest Park; and an unidentified woman of about 60 years old. The victims of the 1977 Loop derailment represent a broad swath of Chicagoans; parents, young lovers, people young and old, commuters and city-dwellers, friends, students, salarymen, and more. All of them innocent lives lost tragically on a routine train ride they’d never expected to be your last. Next time you find yourself at the intersection of Lake and Wabash, or under the fluorescent bulbs of a CTA car, take a moment to reflect on this disaster and its massive human toll, and count yourself grateful for the precious life you lead and the now-hopefully-safe transportation network that facilitates much of it.
