Railroad Accident Report
Collision of Northern Indiana Commuter
Transportation District Train 102
With a Tractor-Trailer
Portage, Indiana
June 18, 1998

NTSB Number RAR-99/03 
NTIS Number PB99-916303 
PDF Document (1.2M) 
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Abstract: About 4:31 a.m. central daylight time on June 18, 1998, a westbound Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District two-car passenger train struck the second semitrailer of a long combination vehicle that consisted of a tractor pulling two flatbed semitrailers loaded with steel coils at a highway-rail grade crossing near Portage, Indiana. When the vehicles collided, the second semitrailer broke away from the first semitrailer and was dragged by the front of the train, while the single chain securing a steel coil to the second semitrailer broke. The released steel coil, weighing about 19 tons, entered the train through the front bulkhead of the lead car and moved into the passenger compartment. Three fatalities and five minor injuries resulted from the accident. Damages were estimated to total $886,000.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collision between Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District train 102 and a long combination vehicle (truck) at the National Steel Corporation’s Midwest Steel grade crossing was ineffective action by Federal, State, and private agencies to permanently resolve safety problems at the Midwest Steel grade crossing, which they knew to be a hazardous crossing.

The major safety issues addressed in this report are

• Safety at private grade crossings,
• Design of the Midwest Steel grade crossing,
• Conspicuity of the long combination vehicle semitrailer, and
• Crashworthiness of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation
• District railcars.

As a result of this accident investigation, the Safety Board makes safety recommendations to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, the National Steel Corporation (Midwest Steel Division), and the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Safety Board also reiterates one safety recommendation to the U.S. Department of Transportation.