NTSB: Warning lights were working at site of fatal crash

The lights and gates that warn motorists of oncoming train traffic at the Commerce Street crossing in Valhalla, the site of Tuesday”™s fatal collision between a Metro-North commuter train and an SUV, were working properly, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

At a press briefing, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told reporters the Metro-North train was traveling at 58 miles per hour, below the track speed limit of 60 mph, when it struck a Mercedes-Benz SUV driven by Ellen Brody, 49, of Edgemont. Brody and five train passengers were killed in the crash, and 15 were injured.

Despite the train”™s engineer, Steven Smalls, applying the emergency brake, the train took 950 feet to stop, tearing out 800 feet of the third rail, which pierced the SUV”™s gas tank and then the first car of the train.

Eyewitness Rick Hope, who was in the car directly behind Brody”™s, told The Journal News the crossing gate came down on the rear of Brody”™s SUV. He then saw Brody exit the vehicle, and after finding she could not move the gate off the car, she got back into the SUV and started to pull forward, he said. The train then hit the vehicle. Hope said that before Brody drove forward, her car was not on the tracks and that the train likely would have missed the SUV.

Sumwalt told reporters the NTSB would look into whether road traffic trapped Brody”™s vehicle on the tracks, as well as Brody”™s cellphone records.

Investigators have interviewed the train”™s engineer, who told them he saw the car moving onto the grade crossing, and expect to interview the conductor Friday, Sumwalt said.

Full service has been restored on the Metro-North Harlem Line, though trains are moving slowly through the accident scene and will do so for as long as investigators are present.

Witnesses are asked to contact the National Transportation Safety Board by emailing witness@ntsb.gov.