Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 27, 1995                   TAG: 9510270076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FOX RIVER GROVE, ILL.                                LENGTH: Medium

SIGNAL WAS EXAMINED JUST BEFORE BUS WAS HIT

The light is supposed to turn green automatically and clear the tracks as trains approach, but ``the timing doesn't appear to be proper,'' National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia said.

Investigators are trying to determine why the bus carrying 35 students remained in the path of the train Wednesday. They began testing the light overnight and were seeking police phone logs to check for complaints about the signal.

Residents said they've been complaining for a long time about poor coordination between the gates and signals at the crossing and the stop light at the intersection just beyond.

``People have been saying something's going to happen because it's just not timed right,'' said Jim Homola, who was in his car behind the bus when the train hit.

Truck driver Charlie Ward said he was caught in a dangerous squeeze at the same intersection only a half-hour earlier.

``You do not get a green light to clear the intersection before the railroad signals and gate come down,'' Ward said.

Five students died Wednesday, and two more died Thursday after they were taken off life support. Eight other students remained hospitalized, two in critical condition.

At the 1,400-student Cary-Grove High School in Cary, near this bedroom community about 40 miles northwest of Chicago, students pinned white paper to their shirts with the names of the dead on them. Many held hands. Boys and girls wept together.

``No one is doing any learning, they're just sitting and crying,'' said 16-year-old Melanie Jopek.

Dozens of bouquets and mementos were placed against the crossing gates: balloons, poems, a red candle, a white cross and two white teddy bears with red hearts.

The Chicago-bound express train was traveling between 50 and 60 mph, well below the 70 mph limit, when it hit the brakes. The impact sheared the body of the bus off the chassis, spinning it around 180 degrees. Nobody on the train was injured.

The crossing was guarded by a gate, bells, flashing lights and signs, but space is tight between the stoplight and the tracks, said Chris Knapton of Metra, Chicago's suburban commuter train agency.

Sensors embedded in the tracks are supposed to change the crossing's traffic light to green as a train approaches, allowing vehicles to clear the intersection. But some witnesses reported that the light was red, which could have prevented the bus from moving into the heavy morning traffic.

Transportation Department spokesman Dick Adorjan said the signal was working properly just before the crash, when Fox River Grove Police Chief Robert Polston and a Transportation Department official met at the intersection.

``At the time that they were there, two trains had passed through and the signals had operated properly,'' Adorjan said, adding that a contractor had found the system to be working correctly Tuesday.