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Such a terrible tragedy

NYC Train Derails Leaving 4 Dead And 40 Injured

An NYC commuter train derailed early Sunday morning, claiming the lives of four passengers and leaving over three dozen others injured.

via CNN

A commuter train derailed in a curve in the New York borough of the Bronx on Sunday, killing four people and leaving dozens hurt, investigators said.

All seven passenger cars and the locomotive jumped the tracks near the Spuyten Duyvil station, about 10 miles north of Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, the National Transportation Safety Board reported. Three of the dead were thrown out of the train as it “came off the track and was twisting and turning,” New York Fire Department Chief Edward Kilduff told reporters.

Surviving passenger Amanda Swanson told CNN the windows of the coaches broke out, and “the gravel came flying up in our faces.”

“I really didn’t know if I would survive,” said Swanson, who put her bag in front of her face to block the rubble. “The train felt like it was on its side and dragging for a long time. … The whole thing felt like slow motion.”

The train was en route to Grand Central from Poughkeepsie, 74 miles up the Hudson River, when it derailed about 7:20 a.m., NTSB member Earl Weener said Sunday. At least 67 people were injured, said Joe Bruno, New York’s commissioner of emergency management, and 11 remained in critical condition Sunday evening, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters.

The official cause of the derailment is still unclear, but investigators are looking into the speed of the train at the time of accident as a possibly fatal factor.

The diesel locomotive was pushing passenger cars through a 30-mph curve north of the station at the time of the crash, Weener said. He said that configuration is one of many things investigators will be examining as they try to determine the cause of the wreck.

“Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened, with the intent of preventing it from ever happening again,” he said.

About 150 people were on the train when it derailed, said Laureen Coyne, director of risk management for New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, which includes the Metro-North railroad. One car came to rest just feet away from the Harlem River.

“I heard this horrible, whooshing sound. … It was very disturbing, very loud,” said Hank Goldman, who lives near the tracks. “I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and I saw a light-colored object lying down. I thought it was the roadway to the train. Then I got my binoculars, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, that the train had jumped the tracks right here.”

The Metro-North Hudson Line had a ridership of 15.9 million last year, with hundreds of people riding the packed trains during weekday rush hour, officials said.

The train operator — who is among the injured — told investigators he applied brakes to the train, but it didn’t slow down, a law enforcement official on the scene and familiar with the investigation said.

Story still developing…

via Twitter/NY Daily News Newspaper

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