A westbound Amtrak train slammed into a car on the tracks at Wolf Road in Western Springs at about 8 a.m. Wednesday, killing two people and injuring a third in a fiery crash that brought all BNSF Metra service to a halt. The vehicle caught fire after being struck, and the injured person was rushed to Loyola Hospital in Maywood.
A spokesperson for the Village of Western Springs confirmed the deaths, according to ABC7 Chicago, which reported that two people were killed and one person was hurt in the crash. Metra said all BNSF service was halted until further notice, with an extensive delay anticipated for both inbound and outbound trains. Crossings at Grand Avenue and Wolf Road were closed following the crash, though Lawn Avenue remained open.
Chopper 7 Captures Scene as Car Burns
Chopper 7 was over the scene at about 8:36 a.m. and it appeared the vehicle had caught fire, the station reported. Separately, CBS News Chicago reported that a westbound Amtrak train hit a car on the tracks at Wolf Road around 8 a.m., and that BNSF train No. 1250 would not operate as a result. To keep passengers moving, an extra BNSF inbound train departed LaGrange and made all stops to Chicago.
Hinsdale Fire Department was first on the scene and extinguished the car fire, with Western Springs Police and Fire, La Grange Park, and La Grange among the other departments that responded, according to the Western Springs Tribune. That outlet reported that the driver appeared to be the vehicle's sole occupant, though her condition was unclear at the time.
A Familiar Danger at Illinois Crossings
Train-vehicle collisions are not new to this stretch of the BNSF line. In 2020, Western Springs police investigated a car-versus-train crash at the same Wolf Road grade crossing, after a vehicle struck a train there on a Sunday, per the Chicago Tribune. In that earlier incident, the driver and a passenger escaped without injuries and were taken to La Grange Memorial Hospital as a precaution.
Nearby Brookfield has also seen a similar crash, when an Amtrak train hit a vehicle near the Congress Park Metra Station around 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, according to CBS News Chicago. Inbound and outbound BNSF trains stopped for roughly a half hour before resuming with extensive delays around 7 p.m., the rail agency said at the time.
Statewide, highway-rail crossings remain a persistent safety concern. Illinois recorded 134 collisions between trains and motor vehicles or pedestrians at highway-rail crossings in 2025, with 34 people killed and 27 seriously injured, according to figures from the Illinois Commerce Commission. The state has roughly 7,300 miles of track and thousands of public crossings, the commission notes, and it tracks county-level collision data going back several years.
