Twisted wreckage from the Amtrak derailment RELATED VIDEO CNN's Leon Harris reports on the survivors and injured Windows Media 28K 80K RELATED VIDEO CNN's Patty Davis hears from a victim and rescue workers Windows Media 28K 80K INTERACTIVE PHOTO GALLERY: Amtrak crash: A closer look  AMTRAK DERAILMENT INFORMATION: 1-800-523-9101

Search for survivors continues

March 16, 1999
Web posted at: 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT)

In this story: Were gates and lights working? 'I heard people screaming' RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOURBONNAIS, Illinois (CNN) -- More bodies were found early Tuesday, the morning after an Amtrak train derailed and caught fire when it slammed into a tractor-trailer south of Chicago. Several other people remained unaccounted for following the Monday night collision that killed at least 12 people and injured more than 100, some critically.

As the sun came up on Tuesday, rescue crews climbed through the twisted wreckage and smoky haze, hoping to find survivors.

More than 200 people -- both passengers and crew -- were on the Chicago-to-New Orleans train when the accident occurred about 9:45 p.m. at a railroad crossing in Bourbonnais, Illinois, a town of about 14,000 located 50 miles south of Chicago.

The truck, loaded with heavy steel bars, was leaving a nearby Birmingham Steel Co. facility.

The train consisted of two engines and 14 railroad cars. Both locomotives and all but the last three of the passenger cars left the tracks. One of the engines split in half.

Bourbonnais Fire Chief Mike Harshbarger said the collision caused the train engines and a sleeper car to catch fire. The fire was later put out.

Rescuers said most of the injured were in the sleeper car, which Amtrak officials said was directly behind the engines and a baggage car. Many of the injured were taken to hospitals in nearby Kankakee. Others were transported to Chicago.

The train's engineer survived and "did not receive life-threatening injuries," Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black told CNN from Washington.

The condition of the truck driver was not immediately known. The cab of the truck was not struck by the train.

Were gates and lights working?

Authorities said they were investigating whether gates and lights -- which were flashing after the accident -- were working before the collision.

Lee Bullock, president of Amtrak's InterCity service, said the train's "black box" data recorder would not be removed until a team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene.

The data recorder "gives information about speed, about brake applications, about when the whistle was blown, about acceleration, throttle settings," Black said.

'I heard people screaming'

Medical authorities said injuries ranged from a broken back to broken bones; there also were amputations of fingers and toes

Passenger Shawn Barr, asleep when the train crashed, was not seriously injured. "I heard people screaming," he told CNN. "Somebody fell on my leg."

"I was trying to go to sleep. Then all of the sudden everything just started crashing and catching on fire and people hollering and running. It was awful," said Blanche Jones, a passenger from Memphis, Tennessee.

"By the grace of God, I just went down a stairway and found a way to get out and let everybody know how to get out," she said.

The train was traveling the same route the late singer-songwriter Steve Goodman recounted in his song "City of New Orleans" about a pre-Amtrak version of the train. Arlo Guthrie turned Goodman's song into a '70s era hit.

Correspondent Patty Davis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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