Tina and Allaysa Porter

Three dead, 1 hurt in Marissa train crash
Young survivor's condition critical
BY DANIEL KELLEY
News-Democrat

MARISSA - A mother, teen daughter and teen friend were killed and another youngster critically injured after an empty coal train struck a vehicle at 7:43 a.m. Monday.

Neighbors have pushed for gates to be installed at the South Main Street rail crossing since spring 2005, but the state did not consider the project urgent. Thirteen other crashes and four other deaths occurred there.

Driver Tina Porter, 43, her daughter Allaysa Porter, 13, and family friend Donna Jean Calvert, 13, were killed in the wreck, said St. Clair County Coroner Rick Stone. They died from massive trauma.

Family friend Julie Seymour, 12, survived the wreck and was in critical condition Monday at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis, police said.

All four victims were thrown from the vehicle and all are from Marissa.

Marissa Police Chief Mike Kerperien said Porter was headed to Marissa Junior-Senior High School to drop off the seventh-grade girls. He said Porter was driving a 2004 Chevy Blazer north on Main Street and made no attempt to stop before she was struck.

Marissa Junior-Senior High School Principal Michael Guthrie said the girls in the accident were quiet students in the seventh grade.

"All three girls were really close friends, real good kids," Guthrie said.

Several students sought the help of counselors, and a few left school for the day.

"In a small school, everybody is affected," Guthrie said. "The kids in the junior high knew them very well and were affected tremendously."

The westbound train is owned by Union Pacific and was running on tracks owned by Canadian National Railroad. The conductor told police he blew the train's horn before the accident.

The railroad crossing lights were working, but there are no gates to stop oncoming traffic.

Illinois Commerce Commission spokeswoman Beth Bosch said there have been 13 other collisions at the crossing resulting in four other deaths. The last fatal accident at the site was in 1972.

There are plans to install gates at the crossing, but because the gates were not seen as an urgent need they were put on a five-year list of projects. Bosch said the deaths Monday could mean the project gets pushed forward.

Kerperien said police do not know if anyone was at fault in the accident and may never know.

Mike Parker of Marissa was at his home near the crossing at the time of the accident and said he did not hear the train blow its whistle before the crash.

"We had problems with the train there before," Parker said. "The train goes by at 70 mph on occasion."

Canadian National spokesman Jim Kvedaras said the Federal Railroad Administration allows trains to travel through the crossing at 60 mph. A train traveling at that speed takes more than a mile to stop.

Kvedaras said the accident in Marissa could not have been avoided.

"There is no reaction time in the world where an engineer could stop the train," Kvedaras said.

In 2005, Parker gathered 180 signatures to petition the Illinois Commerce Commission to install gates at the crossing.

"Whenever I came back from the accident I told my wife 'Well, the train finally killed somebody,'" Parker said. "I just sat down and cried because I kind of felt like if I would have tried harder they might not have died."