Woman Fatally Struck By Rock Island Metra Train Identified

CHICAGO — A woman was struck and killed by a Metra train Sunday evening on the Rock Island line in Washington Heights. She was identified as 70-year-old Audrey Buck by the Cook County Medical Center.

A Metra official told Patch that an inbound Rock Island train 126 struck the female pedestrian around 7:30 p.m. at the rail crossing near 99th Street and Vincennes.

News media showed the remnants of a wheelchair on the railroad tracks. Metra. did not have confirmation if the wheel chair belonged to the pedestrian or if she was in the wheelchair when the crash occurred.

“It’s under investigation,” Metra spokesperson Martha Hill said.

Train #126 was due into LaSalle at 7:40 p.m. Passengers waited over an hour on the train that was stopped near Gresham. The Rock Island line reopened at 9:30 p.m. allowing trains to start moving.

“Because we were running on a Sunday schedule, we didn’t have a whole lot of trains,” Hill said.

This is the second accident on the Rock Island line in the past week. On Tuesday, a train clipped an unoccupied van on the tracks 111th Street and Marshfield Avenue.