Six people were killed and 15 others were injured when a Metro-North commuter train struck a vehicle at a railroad crossing in Valhalla on Tuesday evening.
The driver of the sport utility vehicle and five train passengers died.
The driver has been identified as Ellen Brody, a 49-year-old Edgemont resident. The victim’s daughter, Danielle Brody, is a reporter at the Westchester County Business Journal. Her first day of work at this publication was on Tuesday.
A close friend of the victim said Brody worked on Tuesday in Chappaqua, where she had been employed as a sales administrator at ICD Jewelry, according to her LinkedIn page. Driving from Chappaqua to an unfamiliar location in Scarsdale, she got lost and stopped to ask for directions, her friend said. The accident occurred soon after she resumed her trip.
Brody would have celebrated her 50th birthday next month, said her grief-stricken friend.
Train 659, the 5:45 p.m. Harlem Line express to Southeast, struck the SUV at the Commerce Street railroad crossing, pushing it approximately 400 feet down the tracks. The impact dislodged the third rail, which carries electrical current to power the train, and the rail penetrated the first car of the eight-car train, resulting in a fire.
“This is a truly ugly and brutal sight,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing later in the night. “When you look at the damage done and the damage by the fire, it”™s actually amazing that not more people were hurt on that train.”
Eyewitnesses said the crossing gates initially came down on the back of the SUV. The driver then moved the SUV forward, and the crossing gate dropped, trapping the car on the tracks.
“I”™m signaling and yelling for her to back up and reverse, and I”™m thinking ”˜the clock is ticking here,”™” Richard Hope, who was driving behind her, told the New York Post. “But she gets back in her car and starts driving forward over the tracks.”
The train struck the car seconds later.
Passengers broke out windows and opened the train”™s doors to escape the flames and smoke, and those that got out were taken to a nearby rock climbing gym, where they awaited shuttle buses to their destinations.
“I”™m utterly amazed that anyone got out of that (train) car ”¦ with that amount of damage,” said Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino at a press briefing Tuesday following the crash. He said everything inside the first car of the train was melted.
“It must have been pure panic, with the flames, the third rail and the smoke,” Astorino said.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Thomas Prendergast said the third rail entered the SUV and then went up through the first car of the train, causing the SUV to burst into flames and starting the fire in the train.
Prendergast said the 5:45 p.m. express train carries an average of 655 passengers, and the speed limit for trains in the area is 60 mph.
“This appears to not have been the conductor or engineer”™s fault, but the driver”™s fault,” Astorino said. “But that”™s all a part of the investigation.”
The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a go-team to investigate, which will review the train”™s event recorder as well as other data related to the incident.
“You have (six) people today who set out about their business today and aren”™t going to be making it home tonight,” Cuomo said at the Tuesday night press conference. “It”™s a painful reminder of how precious life is and how random it can be.”
Crash is latest in string of Metro-North incidents
The Valhalla crash comes shortly after the NTSB released a report on the May 17, 2013, collision involving two Metro-North New Haven Line trains near Bridgeport, Conn., which injured dozens of passengers. The report recommended replacing bolts on all of the railroad”™s new M-8 cars, which were not the cause of the derailment, but did allow parts of one car to cut into another car.
Shortly after the Bridgeport crash, a track foreman was struck by a train and killed in West Haven, Conn., when a rookie dispatcher mistakenly opened the track to train traffic.
In July 2013, a CSX freight train carrying garbage derailed near Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx, causing service disruptions on the Harlem Line for several days.
A Sept. 25, 2013, power outage on the New Haven Line caused by the failure of a 138,000-volt feeder cable resulted in two weeks of delays, as diesel trains had to be substituted between Harrison and Stamford, Conn., until full power could be restored.
On Dec. 1, 2013, an engineer on Metro-North”™s Hudson Line fell asleep and failed to slow his train as it rounded a curve near Spuyten Duyvil. The train derailed, killing four passengers and leaving 70 injured. That incident was Metro-North”™s deadliest before Tuesday”™s crash in Valhalla.
Shortly after the Spuyten Duyvil derailment, Metro-North was criticized in a Federal Railway Administration report that found the railroad put on-time performance ahead of safety, and had a poor safety culture and ineffective training programs.
Following the Valhalla crash, U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, tweeted “As MTA & NTSB look into #MetroNorth crash we need to know how & why it happened & take steps to prevent these incidents from ever recurring.”
As MTA & NTSB look into #MetroNorth crash we need to know how & why it happened & take steps to prevent these incidents from ever recurring
”” Sean Patrick Maloney (@RepSeanMaloney) February 4, 2015
Multiple investigations underway
On a conference call Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said investigations are being conducted by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
“There are a whole lot of questions, but it”™s way too early” to determine fault, Schumer said. “Whenever the findings are live, we”™ll fight to prevent anything like this from happening ever again.”
Schumer told reporters the train was traveling at a speed within the limits for the area, at approximately 58 miles per hour, according to preliminary data. He said it was extremely rare for the third rail to be dislodged as it was in the Valhalla incident.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who joined Schumer on the call, said in response to a reporter”™s question that it is believed the third rail was live when it pierced the SUV as well as the first car of the train. “The initial assessment is that the (SUV) caused the third rail to push up into the train,” Blumenthal said.
“This kind of horrific, terrible crash was preventable,” said Blumenthal, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security.
“Trust and confidence in MTA Metro-North and all other railroads is at stake,” Blumenthal said, who introduced the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2014 during the last Congress. The bill, which was not signed into law, proposed a strengthening of railroad regulations.
Earlier, I spoke with @NTSB member Robert Sumwalt””leading the investigation into the @MetroNorth crash””and urged thorough review. -RB ”” Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) February 4, 2015
Service on Harlem Line snarled
As of Wednesday morning, service on the Harlem Line was disrupted as the investigation continued.
Trains from North White Plains to Grand Central Terminal were operating normally. There was no service between North White Plains and Pleasantville.
The city of White Plains sent an advisory stating that parking at the main White Plains railroad station is limited and that additional parking can be found in the Lexington-Grove West Garage at 100 Main St., which is within walking distance of the station.
Electric service was operating from Southeast to Goldens Bridge, where commuters could catch shuttles to North White Plains.
Diesel shuttle service was operating on the north end of the line from Wassaic to Southeast, with delays expected.
