Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:
Ten years ago, Barrington residents predicted that running enormous CN trains on the EJ & E tracks through town would clog traffic, and slow emergency personnel and ambulances.
On June 12 at 4:41 p.m., those warnings coalesced when a stalled CN train bisected the village during the afternoon rush. Among the thousands of vehicles caught in the jam were ambulances headed to Good Shepherd Hospital with two patients from a DUI crash at Ela Road and Northwest Highway.
“Do we have any idea where this stopped train is extending from?” a Barrington paramedic radioed in a video provided by the village last week. “I’m not sure which direction I should head in.”
As firefighters quickly found out, all four CN crossings — at Main Street, Hough Street (Route 59), Northwest Highway and Lake Zurich Road — were inaccessible, and trains on an intersecting rail line also backed up.
While traffic gridlock spiraled, Barrington police who had coalesced south of the tracks to handle the DUI crash reached out to neighboring departments. “Can you please let Lake Zurich PD, Lake County and Barrington Hills know on our northwest side we have no officers on right now. So if we need assistance we’ll be calling them,” a dispatcher asked.
Some desperate commuters ducked under train cars to reach the opposite side. “There are numerous people who are actually crawling over the train that’s stopped here,” a 911 caller reported. “It’s getting more and more dangerous — there are kids doing it as well.”
Nearly one hour later, the train started moving again.
