Metro-North Passenger Train Derails in New York, Killing Four

Officials Say 63 Injured in Commuter Train Cars off Tracks Near Spuyten Duyvil Station on Hudson Line

The Wall Street Journal

By TED MANN, ALISON FOX And MARA GAY

Updated Dec. 1, 2013 11:28 a.m. ET

A Metro-North train derailed in New York City Sunday morning, killing four people on board and scattering rail cars near the water's edge, authorities said.

The southbound diesel train on the Hudson line derailed about 100 yards from the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx at about 7:30 a.m., a railroad spokeswoman said. Officials said there were 63 others injured, with 11 in critical condition.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said it was unclear if the fatalities were passengers or crew members, and their families had not been notified by late morning.

"It's obviously a very tragic situation," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who arrived at the scene. "What we do know is four people lost their lives today in the holiday season, right after Thanksgiving."

Mr. Cuomo said a National Transportation Safety Board investigation would begin soon.

The train left Poughkeepsie at 5:54 a.m. and derailed at 7:22 a.m., said Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Tom Prendergast.

The speed limit is 30 miles per hour in the area of the derailment, a sharp curve where the Hudson Line tracks turn east from the banks of the Hudson River to follow the course of the Harlem River, north of Manhattan. It isn't clear how fast the train was traveling when it derailed, Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.

There were no slow-speed restrictions in place on the area of track where the derailment occurred, Ms. Anders said.

The train ordinarily carries about 100 passengers, but holiday traffic could have boosted the total to about 150 riders, Ms. Anders said.

Mr. Prendergast said the train's operator was among the injured. There were three conductors on the train.

A union official who represents Metro-North workers called the derailment "the worst thing I've seen in 38 years" working on the railroad and said the operator was a roughly 20-year veteran of the railroad.

"The whole railroad's praying right now," said James Fahey, the director of the executive board of Association of Commuter Rail Employees. "Everybody's upset about the deaths."

Spuyten Duyvil is the inlet where the Harlem River meets the Hudson River, just north of Manhattan. None of the cars reached the water, Ms. Anders said. NYPD divers were searching the water and had not found any victims, said Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Bruno in a televised interview.

The crash is the second major derailment in one year for Metro-North, which calls itself the busiest commuter rail line in the country, and one that has previously had a good record for safety.

Ryan Kelly, 26, of Yorktown Heights, was on his morning commute to the city from Croton Harmon when he awoke to the disaster. "We came around the bend; I was sleeping with head phones on. I heard screeching, I felt the tilt, and I woke up. I smashed into the overhead [storage area], then blocked my face with this hand," Mr.Kelly said, displaying a heavily gauze-wrapped left hand. "There was a lot of screaming, and a lot of bodies flying around."

Dazed, Mr. Ryan emerged from the train and was shocked at the wreckage around him. "All the cars were smoking, people were knocking out windows, crawling out... they say my hand is shattered above the wrist, and that my bicep is torn at the shoulder."

A graphic designer for Century 21 Department Stores in Tribeca, Mr. Ryan hopes to return to work Monday, although he acknowledges it will be difficult since his job requires two hands. "I had been listening to Christmas music on my headphones," he said. "It's like something out of a movie."

Eddie Hoti's second-floor apartment balcony at 2400 Johnson Ave. overlooks the tracks. "I saw dust. I heard a lot of squeaking," said Mr. Hoti, 44, who is the superintendent at his building. "I don't know if it's a speed issue, but I hear these trains squeaking on a daily basis

"The response was unbelievably quick. They were here within minutes. We saw two scuba divers, they spent 20 or 30 minutes, making sure no one got thrown into the water from the first car."

FDNY Chief of Department Edward Kilduff said some people were pinned by broken seats and other objects, and rescuers used airbags under the train to remove some of the critically injured.

A few cars remain very unstable, and fire officials are working to stabilize them by using jacks and airbags underneath.

The injured were taken to several city hospitals.

In May, one train on the railroad's New Haven line derailed near Bridgeport, Conn., and was immediately sideswiped by another train headed in the opposite direction. That accident caused dozens of injuries, several of them severe, and interrupted service on the busy Northeast Corridor for days.

In hearings before the National Transportation Safety Board in November, railroad officials acknowledged deficiencies in track maintenance in the area of the Bridgeport derailment. Metro-North has redoubled track improvement work and inspections since the accident, the railroad's president, Howard Permut, said to the NTSB.

The railroad didn't immediately give a cause for Sunday's crash.

A freight train carrying trash derailed on the Hudson Line in July, also near Spuyten Duyvil, hampering service for days until the derailed cars could be removed.

—Adam Janos and Joshua Dawsey contributed to this article.

Corrections & Amplifications

The number of injured in the train derailment was 63. An earlier version said it was 67.