Witnesses tell of terrifying moment train plunged into station
A commuter train ploughed into a station in New Jersey at the height of morning rush hour, killing one person on the platform and injuring more than 100 as it brought down part of the roof and scattered debris over the concourse.
Witnesses described terrifying scenes as the front of the train smashed through the track stop at high speed and into the Hoboken terminal, toppling support columns and creating chaos at one of the busiest transit hubs in the New York City area.
One person died on the platform after being struck by debris from the crash, and 108 people were injured, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.
The train’s engineer, or driver, was seriously injured and in a hospital, and was cooperating fully with investigators, Christie said.
“We have no indication that this is anything other than a tragic accident but . . . we’re going to let the law enforcement professionals pursue the facts,” he told a news conference in Hoboken alongside his New York counterpart, Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo said it was obvious the train had come into the station too fast, but it was unclear why.
The cause could be human error or technical failure, Cuomo said, adding it was too early say whether an anticollision system known as positive train control could have prevented the crash.
A couple of hundred emergency workers spent the morning shuttling in and out of the station, some carrying the injured on stretchers to ambulances outside. Federal investigators later began examining the wreckage.
Some of the injured were in critical condition, officials at two hospitals said. Several passengers were initially trapped in the wreckage, but they were later freed.
Hoboken, the last stop on the line it serves, lies on the Hudson’s west bank across from New York City. Its station is used by many commuters travelling into Manhattan from New Jersey and further afield.
Linda Albelli, a 62- year- old from Closter, New Jersey, was sitting in one of the train’s rear cars and described how she had felt something was wrong a moment before the impact.
“I thought to myself, ‘ Oh my God, he’s not slowing up, and this is where we’re usually stop. We’re going too fast’, and with that there was this tremendous crash.”
New Jersey Transit employee Michael Larson was standing outside the station with blood from one of the injured passengers on the knee of his pants.
“It’s hard to believe . . . The whole roof was caved in,” Larson told reporters, looking shocked.
A major transit hub, the historic green- roofed Hoboken Station i s served by NJ Transit commuter trains connecting much of New Jersey with the country’s largest city, as well as the Port Authority Trans- Hudson subway- like system known as PATH, a light rail service and ferry service to New York.