Phil Pagano Metra Train Suicide?

Embattled Metra CEO Phil Pagano committed suicide Friday morning, just hours before the agency’s board was to meet to discuss his future.

Pagano stood on the tracks in unincorporated Crystal Lake for about five to 10 seconds before the train hit him at around 8 a.m., the train’s conductor said, adding that he made eye contact with Pagano before the impact. There were 24 passengers aboard the train.

The train’s lone engineer “saw a man standing on the tracks turning and looking at the train,” Nygren said. “There was eye contact, he felt, between himself and the victim.”
Pagano, Metra’s executive director, made no attempt to step off the tracks, and the train, which was traveling between 45 mph and 55 mph, could not stop in time, Nygren said.

The board was expected to fire him at the meeting, which was abruptly cancelled.
Pagano has been on leave since last week, when Metra’s board chairman launched a probe into whether he paid himself a $56,000 bonus in violation of Metra rules.

Found in Pagano’s pocket was an employee manual detailing how to handle a suicide on the train tracks. Metra released a statement today confirming Pagano’s death, reading in part:

“It is with great sadness that we report the passing this morning of Philip A. Pagano. Phil served this agency with distinction for many years. Today, we shall remember the good work he achieved with our board of directors and the men and women of Metra. He was dedicated to our passengers and he always considered the men and women of Metra his family, and there is a tremendous sense of loss within the agency.”

Metra, a commuter train system that serves Chicago and its suburbs, announced on April 30 that Pagano was under investigation and that he had been placed on paid administrative leave from his $269,000-a-year job. Metra had hired an attorney to investigate allegations that the Metra executive director of 20 years had received an unauthorized $56,000 bonus. No further details were immediately available.