Trains Collide Near Amtrak Crash

MOMENCE, Ill. (AP) — Federal investigators are looking into another train derailment just miles from the site of last week's deadly Amtrak collision.

Five men were injured when one freight train crashed into another Tuesday morning. The men — an engineer-conductor team from each train and a firefighter — were taken to Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, where all were treated and released, said hospital spokeswoman Mary Thomson.

Officials say the eastbound Conrail freight train hit a southbound Union Pacific train loaded with auto parts just after 7 a.m. at an intersection of the two companies' tracks about 50 miles south of Chicago.

Investigators from both companies and the National Transportation Safety Board traveled to the scene Tuesday afternoon to determine what caused the crash, which happened about 11 miles east of the spot where an Amtrak train collided with a steel-laden semi-truck, killing 11 people.

James S. Dunn, the chief investigator for the NTSB, told the Chicago Sun-Times the engineer of one of the trains may have had brake problems.

Union Pacific officials said it appeared their employees didn't cause Tuesday's crash.

"It appears that, at the very outset, the Union Pacific train had a green light to proceed," said John Bromley, a spokesman for the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad.

Ron Hildebrand, a spokesman for Philadelphia-based Conrail, said he had "no reason to disbelieve" what Union Pacific officials said. But he said it was too early to tell if his company's employees ran a signal — or if that signal was working.

NTSB officials, who say they have interviewed both train crews and three witnesses, told the Sun-Times that preliminary reports showed the signals were working properly.