'We have to do it right': Drones help Metra gather more accurate, expedited evidence at crashes

Armed with spray paint, Metra police officer Phillip Fortier crouches down and carefully marks the location of a body, a car and a train at a recent emergency drill.

Then he goes high-tech, launching a DJI Mavic 3 drone above the simulated crash in Itasca.

“It's all about getting accurate distances of where the train hit the car, where the train stopped, where the body landed and the point of final rest,” Fortier explained.

Drones have become a game-changer for the railroad.

Thirty people died in 148 grade crossing crashes in Illinois last year. And when a commuter train is involved, it's not just fire and police responding but a team of Metra experts.

The evidence they gather could help lead to charges, identify a safety problem, be used in litigation or give answers to a victim's family, so there's no room for error.

“We have to do it right,” Metra Police Chief Joseph Perez said. “It's important on so many levels so we can clearly understand what really happened. Was it a failure of equipment? Was it a failure of the driver? Were there environmental things that caused it?”

When he first arrived at Metra in 2014, police would find permanent landmarks at a crash location “and we'd triangulate every one of these with tape measures walking around,” Perez said. “It could take as long as three hours to mark, map and document.”

That not only delays hundreds of people in railcars at the scene, but there's a domino effect for thousands more — from Metra riders in trains on the same line to drivers slowed by the blocked crossing, he said.

In contrast, a drone operator can fly over a crash site in about 20 to 25 minutes. GPS and other technologies also ensure more accurate data, officials said.

“That's huge,” said Hanover Park Mayor Rod Craig, who's also a director on Metra's board.

Currently, the railroad has three drones with on-call operators. The police department plans to purchase three more, which cost between $7,500 and $9,000 apiece, and train officers for 24/7 availability.

At the Sept. 16 drill in Itasca, fire departments and Metra police trained using a scenario in which a train strikes a car, ejecting the driver and injuring passengers.

It hit home with many who recalled a May 11, 2022, collision in Clarendon Hills, where a Metra BNSF Line train crashed into a truck, causing an explosion and killing a 72-year-old train passenger.

“That was very, very sad,” said Fortier, who spent hours working the crash.

During the investigation, Metra police used a “tethered” drone to provide security surveillance at the site.

Back in Itasca, at Fortier's command, the drone darts up 150 feet and proceeds along the length of the train as he takes pictures and video.

“I've finally come to the end of the train. I'm going to turn this bad boy around,” he said.

After documenting from different altitudes, “I put it into my software and it stitches all the photos together and makes a model” that's analyzed by investigators, said Fortier, a former IT professional.

The drone is “a blessing for police work,” he said.

You should know

Illinois ranked third in the U.S. for grade crossing collisions in 2022 with 148, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Texas was first with 241 and California second with 172, out of 2,178 crashes in total.

Perez attributes many to driver inattention, motorists going around gates and pedestrians walking around stopped trains. With trains, “it's impossible to judge speed,” he said. “It looks like it's a long way away ... and you think you have time.”

The drill included fire departments from Addison, Bensenville, Bloomingdale, Elmhurst, Glen Ellyn, Hanover Park, Itasca, Lombard, Roselle, Villa Park and Wood Dale.

With tracks extending across six counties, “we count on our local jurisdictions” when collisions occur, Perez said.

Hanover Park Battalion Chief Garret Kody called it “a unique opportunity from Metra to get hands-on experience with passenger trains and how to safely work around and remove people from them during emergencies.”

One more thing

After weeks of work, the first phase of the CTA's Blue Line Forest Park Branch rebuild is wrapping up for the year and trains have resumed normal operations. The CTA line was built in 1958 and has outdated track and some stations with limited accessibility. This summer, workers focused on improvements between the LaSalle and Illinois Medical District stops, which required several station closures.