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Cars
from a Metro-North passenger train are scattered after the train
derailed in the AP Cars from a Metro-North passenger train are scattered
after the train derailed in the Bronx neighborhood of New York, Sunday,
Dec. 1, 2013.
Metro-North passenger train derails in NYC
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City commuter train
rounding a riverside curve derailed and came to rest only inches from
the water Sunday, killing four people, injuring more than 60 others and
sending a chain of toppled cars shaped like a backward question mark
trailing off the track, authorities said.
Some of the 100 to 150 passengers on the early
morning Metro-North train from suburban Poughkeepsie to Manhattan said
they were jolted awake around 7:20 a.m. to screams and the frightening
sensation of their compartment rolling over on a bend where the Hudson
and Harlem rivers meet in the Bronx. When the motion stopped, four or
five of the seven cars were off the rails in the latest, and deadliest,
example of this year’s troubles for the nation’s second-biggest commuter
railroad.
‘‘Four people lost their lives today in the
holiday season, right after Thanksgiving,’’ Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a
news conference. One of the four was found outside the train, officials
said. Eleven of the injured were believed to be critically injured and
another six seriously hurt, according to the Fire Department. The train
operator was among the injured, Cuomo said.
The National Transportation Safety Board was
en route to investigate, and Cuomo would not speculate about the causes
of the crash until the federal agency issued its findings. Metropolitan
Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas F. Prendergast noted that
investigators would look at factors including the train, the track and
signal system, the train operators and speed.
The big curve where the derailment occurred is
in a slow-speed area. One passenger, Frank Tatulli told WABC-TV the
train appeared to be going ‘‘a lot faster’’ than usual as it approached
the curve coming into the Spuyten Duyvil station.
MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the train’s black box should be able to tell how fast the train was traveling, Anders said.
Many of those aboard the train, which left
Poughkeepsie shortly before 6 a.m., were probably headed to New York for
holiday shopping.
Joel Zaritsky was dozing as he traveled to the city for a dental convention.
‘‘I woke up when the car started rolling
several times. Then I saw the gravel coming at me, and I heard people
screaming,’’ he told The Associated Press, holding his bloody right
hand. ‘‘There was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the
other side of the train.’’
Three of the dead were found outside the
train, and one was found inside, authorities said. Their families had
not yet been notified.
Passengers were taken off the derailed train,
with dozens of them bloodied and scratched, holding ice packs to their
heads. The fire department said 130 firefighters responded to the scene.
Edwin Valero was in an apartment building
above the accident. At first, he said, he didn’t notice that the train
had flipped over.
‘‘I didn’t realize it had been turned over until I saw a firefighter walking on the window,’’ he said.
Amtrak Empire service was halted between New
York City and Albany after the derailment. Amtrak said its Northeast
Corridor service between Boston and Washington was unaffected.
When the NTSB gives the go-ahead, the MTA will begin efforts to restore service, Prendergast said.
Sunday’s accident is the second passenger train derailment in six months for the rail service.
On May 17, an eastbound train derailed in
Bridgeport, Conn., and was struck by a westbound train. The crash
injured 73 passengers, two engineers and a conductor. Eleven days later,
track foreman Robert Luden was struck and killed by a train in West
Haven, Conn.
In July, a freight train full of garbage
derailed while using a Metro-North line, and this fall service on
Metro-North’s line between New York City and Connecticut was hobbled for
days after a high-voltage feeder line failed.
Earlier this month, Metro-North’s chief
engineer, Robert Puciloski, told members of the NTSB investigating the
May derailment and Luden’s death that the railroad is ‘‘behind in
several areas,’’ including a five-year schedule of cyclical maintenance
that had not been conducted in the area of the Bridgeport derailment
since 2005.
The NTSB issued an urgent recommendation to
Metro-North that it use ‘‘redundant protection,’’ such as a procedure
known as ‘‘shunting’’ in which crews attach a device to the rail in a
work zone alerting the dispatcher to inform approaching trains to stop.
___
Associated Press writers Kiley Armstrong, Colleen Long and Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
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ReplyDeleteThis is very bad news about Metro-North passenger train derails in NYC. that,s very sad and i did not get the reason of that it all Metro Airport Taxi
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