New York commuter train crash kills 6, dozen hurt

MOUNT PLEASANT, New York: Six people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a crowded New York commuter train struck a car stalled on the tracks near suburban White Plains during rush hour on Tuesday evening, in what officials said was the railroad’s deadliest accident.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CBS News on Wednesday that a review found that five people had died on the train, not the six previously reported. The driver of the Jeep Cherokee that the train struck while it was stuck on the tracks also died.
“The number of deceased in the train itself dropped from six to five, so that was actually good news,” Cuomo said in an interview on “CBS This Morning.”
Some 15 people were injured, including seven in very serious condition, he added.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state-controlled agency that runs the railroad, said the crash was the deadliest accident for Metro-North, the second largest commuter railroad in the United States.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates transportation accidents, plans to examine signals at the crossing, the highway that intersects the rail tracks and any issues linked with the fire, according to board member Robert Sumwalt.
The highway signals, rail signals and the crossing arms at the intersection all have recording devices that NTSB investigators will examine, Sumwalt said in remarks to reporters at Reagan National Airport near Washington.
The crash also meant that thousands of commuters faced a snarled journey to work on Wednesday morning.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said roughly 45,000 riders take the Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem Line on an average weekday, about 14,000 of whom board north of where the crash occurred and would be directly affected.
Parts of the line would stay closed on Wednesday, according to the MTA, which was arranging for shuttle buses to fill the gap and warned of crowding and delays, although some trains traveling on the stretch of the line south of the crash in the morning were not noticeably busier.
The 750-volt third rail pierced the Jeep and then tore through the floor of the first car of the train, officials said, charring the carriage and sending billows of smoke into the air. Damage to the other seven cars was minimal.
“The third rail stops at the grade crossing, and so that’s where the contact with the automobile was made,” Thomas Prendergast, the MTA’s chairman, told reporters at the scene late on Monday.
Hundreds of passengers were taken to a rock-climbing gym for shelter, authorities said.
Jared Woodard, an employee of BGC Financial in New York who was on the train traveling home to Chappaqua, described frightening scenes as the train was evacuated.
“The smoke was orange coming off the train, it was still on fire at that point,” he said. “The front car was billowing heavy smoke out of the windows and doors.”
Media reports said the driver of the car got out briefly to try to push it off the tracks, then got back in before it was hit by the train.
“It appears that the gasoline tank on the car burst and that started the fire,” Cuomo said, adding that the fire “consumed” the car and the front train carriage.
Some 650 passengers regularly take the train, which carries commuters through affluent New York City suburbs such as Westchester County, one of the richest in the United States.
Westchester is home to many bankers, doctors and corporate lawyers, boasts a median household income of roughly $82,000, and houses the headquarters of major companies including IBM and PepsiCo. Inc.
Tuesday’s crash is the latest in a string of accidents involving Metro-North trains in recent years, which have drawn strong criticism.
One derailed near the northern edge of New York City on Dec. 1, 2013, killing four people and injuring 70. It was traveling nearly three times the speed limit for the section of track where it crashed, investigators said.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino made a distinction between that crash, which was the result of a train employee error, and Tuesday’s accident. But he said the latest accident was still under investigation.
In May 2013, two Metro-North passenger trains collided between Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut, injuring more than 70 people and halting services.
The NTSB released a report late last year that identified common safety issues with the railroad following probes of those accidents and three others between May 2013 and March 2014.