1 dead, 74 hospitalised
New Jersey Transit train overruns tracks, crashes into station
HOBOKEN, NJ (AP): NEW Jersey Transit spokeswoman says that more than 100 people were injured, some critically, when a commuter train overran the end of the tracks and ploughed into the Hoboken station.
The train was coming from Spring Valley, New York, on the Pascack Valley Line and crashed during the Thursdaymorning rush hour. It caused serious damage to both the train and station.
Hospitals in New Jersey say they have received 74 patients from the crash.
A spokesman for Jersey City Medical Center says it got 51 injured. Three are trauma patients in serious condition, while eight others are in less serious condition. Forty others were brought in by bus, were triaged and were being treated in its cafeteria.
Officials at Hoboken University Medical Center say they received 22 patients. Three of them had broken bones, while the rest had bumps, cuts and other minor injuries.
The two hospitals are the primary places taking those injured in the crash, which killed one person. Another patient was taken to Christ Hospital in Jersey City.
APeople examine the wreckage of a New Jersey Transit commuter train that crashed into the train station during the morning rush hour in Hoboken, New Jersey, yesterday.
Christie spoke to Fox News more than two hours after the crash. He confirmed that there has been one fatality.
The governor says he, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and New Jersey Transit coordinated the response.
The New Jersey Transit train was not equipped with technology that is designed to slow speeding trains.
US railroads are under government orders to install the system called positive train control, but the work has gone more slowly than expected. The deadline has been repeatedly extended and is now December 31, 2018.
Bob Chipkevich, who formerly headed the National Transportation Safety Board’s train crash investigations section, says the agency will be looking at whether the train was exceeding speed limits, both when it was approaching the station and when it entered the station area.
Last month, the Federal Railroad Administration said New Jersey Transit had a lot of work yet to do on installing the necessary equipment. New Jersey Transit responded that the report didn’t reflect the work it had accomplished.