Metro-North Train Hits S.U.V. in Railroad’s Deadliest Accident

By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS

A crowded Metro-North Railroad train passing through Westchester County at the height of the evening rush on Tuesday slammed into a sport-utility vehicle on the tracks at a crossing, creating a fiery crash and explosion that killed seven people, injured a dozen and forced the evacuation of hundreds. It was the deadliest crash in the railroad’s history.

Passengers were temporarily stranded after evacuating the train, as its front car continued to release billowing smoke into the cold night air. Service was suspended on the Harlem line on Tuesday night as firefighters responded to the smoking car and officials said they were investigating what had led to the crash.

The train hit the S.U.V., a black Jeep Cherokee, in the crossing at Commerce Street in Valhalla, N.Y., around 6:30 p.m., officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The driver of the vehicle and six people on the train were killed, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said after touring the scene late Tuesday.

“This is a truly ugly and brutal sight,” he said. Mr. Cuomo said the car was stopped on the tracks and the crossing gates were down when it was hit by the train, resulting in a fire that consumed the vehicle and the first car of the train. The train pushed the S.U.V. about 400 feet, and the explosion caused the third rail of the track to go through the front train car, Mr. Cuomo said.

Passengers were evacuated through the back of the train. About 400 of them were taken to a local rock-climbing gym for shelter, where buses were to take them to the next working station, said Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the authority.

Ten people were seriously injured and two others had injuries that were not life threatening, Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, said. They were taken to local hospitals. The locomotive engineer on the train was among the injured. One passenger, Scott Miller, 45, said he was riding in the second car of the train when he heard a bang.

“The train screeched to a halt, and you immediately started smelling smoke,” he said. “People started screaming, ‘Run to the back of the train.’ ”

He grabbed his coat and bag and started walking down the aisle toward the back of the train with other worried passengers, he said.

“It was kind of crazy,” he said. “You had firemen trying to bang open the doors. People were jumping out of the windows.”

A worker at a nearby gym, Michael McGuinn, 22, said he saw sparks flying from the front of the train and heard a huge crash. He said he saw the train braking and the car catching fire.

“I knew immediately that it was a car and that it was going to be really bad,” Mr. McGuinn said.

A short time later, he heard passengers moaning and trying to leave the train.

“I just saw a lot of dazed and confused people,” he said. “They all looked shellshocked.”

Metro-North has been under intense scrutiny after a series of crashes that killed six people in less than a year, including a derailment in 2013 on the Hudson line that left four commuters dead in the Bronx. A federal report released last year was highly critical of Metro-North.

On Tuesday night, the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate the crash.

According to preliminary information, the gates at the crossing came down on top of the S.U.V., which had stopped on the tracks, Mr. Donovan said. The driver got out of the vehicle to look at the rear of the car, then got back in and drove forward. Then the vehicle was struck, he said.

Mr. Astorino said that the crash appeared to be the S.U.V. driver’s fault, not the conductor’s.

Service on the Harlem line, which runs from Grand Central Terminal to Wassaic, N.Y., in Dutchess County, was suspended between North White Plains and Pleasantville on Tuesday night. The train in the crash had left Grand Central around 5:45 p.m. and was running express, Mr. Donovan said.

The transportation authority’s chairman, Thomas F. Prendergast, said the express train usually carried around 655 people, and can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour.

Late on Tuesday at the snowy scene, railroad gates were lowered at the site of the crash. Helicopters hovered above. Early on Wednesday the M.T.A. said it had set up a family assistance center at the Mount Pleasant Town Hall in Valhalla for those affected by the crash.

The M.T.A. said there would be major service changes to the railroad’s Harlem Line on Wednesday morning and riders should expect delays and crowded trains. The Valhalla and Hawthorne stations will be closed, and service north of the North White Plains station will not operate normally.

In a statement, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said, “Our hearts go out to those lost, we pray for those injured and our hats are tipped to the brave first responders who came to the scene of this tragic crash so quickly.”

Mr. Schumer, who has been critical of safety measures at the railroad, added,

“At this early stage, it is premature to point any fingers of blame, but there are many important questions that must be answered in the coming days.”

Representative Sean Patrick Maloney issued a statement: “As M.T.A. and N.T.S.B. look into this horrific incident in the days to follow, we need to know how and why this happened and then take real steps to prevent another tragic collision from ever recurring.”

James E. Hall, a former chairman of the safety board, said he expected investigators to consider whether gasoline escaping from the Jeep had set the train car on fire. He said it was unusual for a passenger train to burst into flames in a crash, but he added that “anytime you have friction in an accident there’s a possibility of flammability.”

Mr. Hall said he would expect investigators to look into the rail cars and the difficulty passengers might have had evacuating. He said the safety board had investigated several train accidents in the 1990s “where evacuation was a problem.”

紐約火車撞汽車 至少6死、12人受傷

美國廣播公司新聞網（ABC News）報導，紐約州一列通勤火車3日傍晚在白原市附近撞上一輛汽車，引發火警，至少有6人喪生、12人受傷。

媒體報導指出，被火車撞上的吉普車司機，以及火車上的五名乘客死亡。ABC引述大都會運輸局的消息指出，衝撞引起列車最前端車廂起火。

都會北方鐵路公司說，車禍發生在晚間6時30分左右，出事列車行駛在哈林線上，正要離開紐約市。事發後，北白原站和歡樂谷站之間的哈林線鐵鐵路段已暫停服務。

哈林線的火車行駛在曼哈頓哈林區和紐約州東年方的瓦塞克之間。

許多紐約媒體的照片顯示，有一部汽車正在燃燒，濃煙並從火車車廂冒出，消防員正在處理現場，乘客已經疏散。

ABC引述一名乘客的說法，表示事發時火車上有約750位乘客。媒體報導指出，火車起火燃燒時，乘客被撤退到後面車廂，然後以巴士載走。

車禍地點四周的許多街區都遭封鎖，整個區域到處都是救護車和警車。都會北方鐵路是美國第二繁忙的鐵路，僅次於長島鐵路，每天服務紐約州和康乃狄克州約28萬乘客。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/nyregion/metro-north-train-hits-vehicle-on-tracks.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20150204/c04train/zh-hant/

2015-02-04．聯合晚報．A6．國際焦點．編譯陳澄和