An outbound Metra train travels past a memorial at Algonquin Road and Northwest Highway in Fox River Grove. At the same location on Oct. 25, 1995, inbound Metra train No. 624 crashed into a school bus, killing seven teenagers on their way to class at Cary-Grove High School and injuring the bus driver and 24 passengers. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times)
The dream that has visited Ford Dotson Jr. thousands of times always starts the same way.
It’s a crisp October morning. Beneath clear skies, leaves shimmer copper, gold and red.
It’s long before sunrise, and Dotson sets off from home. He’s happy anyway because there are no weekend shifts, no one bugging him to work holidays. He climbs into the cab of Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest Line train No. 624 heading to Chicago from Crystal Lake. At the end of the run, he’ll curl up on a cot for a few hours before making the return trip.
The 200-ton locomotive at the rear of the train pushes six passenger cars and the cab control car. It’s an express, and ahead the signals are green. So Dotson “jumps it up” to the maximum speed — 70 mph. He crosses the Fox River, which sparkles in the sunlight.
In the distance, he sees a school bus. It’s moving slowly across the tracks, but there’s no reason to panic. Dotson nudges the brake handle — just in case — and blows the train whistle: two long blasts, a short, another long.
But something is wrong. The rear of the bus remains on the tracks. Dotson pumps several short blasts on the airhorn. He keeps at it because the bus isn’t moving. As the train hurtles forward, he slams the brake handle all the way.
That’s the point in the dream when he always wakes up, shaking, just before the impact.
Twenty-five years ago Sunday, Ford Dotson Jr.’s train smashed into a school bus in Fox River Grove. It wasn’t any dream. Seven teenagers, all of them students at Cary-Grove High School, were killed: Jeffrey Clark, Stephanie Fulham, Susanna Guzman, Michael Hoffman, Joe Kalte, Shawn Robinson and Tiffany Schneider. The bus driver and 24 other passengers were injured.
Read more about a sad anniversary this Sunday in the Chicago Sun*Times here.
