The National Transportation Safety Board therefore recommends that the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad and the Chicago South Suburban Mass Transit District:
1. Install attention-getting marker lights, which are effective in all light conditions, and provide definitive attention-getting colored markings at the ends of trains made up of Highliner cars. These actions should be considered also for other commuter passenger cars of generally dark coloration.
Until the causal factors related to signals and operating rules are determined, the Safety Board recommends that in order to guard against a repetition of the accident sequence, the ICGRR:
2. Revise Rule 515 in the current Illinois Central Rules and Regulations of the Operating Department to provide that train or engine which has passed beyond the limits of a block must not reenter that block without the protection of a train order.
This procedure, by removing the authority to reenter a block under a flag protection, also removes any possible uncertainties as to what flagging action would he required under Rule 99(a) in relation to Rule 515. Rule 99 of the ICGRR is the same as Rule 99 of the Association of American Railroad's Standard Code of Operating Rules. The Safety Board in its special study entitled "Signals and Operating Rules as Causal Factors in Train Accidents," adopted on December 2, 1971, pointed out some vague areas in Rule 99. The requirement for a train order will insure that any following train, if affected, will be notified. This procedure is practical on railroads, such as the ICGRR, which have radio communication.
The Safety Board also recommends that, as an interim measure, the ICGRR:
3. Establish procedures that will prohibit a train from entering a block already occupied by a passenger train except under protection of a train order.
Although it appears that the following train in this accident did not enter the block while the first train was still occupying it, the Operating rules would allow such an entry at restricted speed. In this accident, the second train apparently passed an approach signal at 31st Street and was required to reduce to medium speed (30 m.p.h.) at once and to approach the next signal prepared to stop. The damage is evidence that the second train did not approach the collision point prepared to stop. Therefore, the Safety Board concludes that a second train can enter an occupied block on a restricting signal and strike an occupied train at a speed that can inflict serious and possibly
