Emergency workers were on the scene quickly after the crash
The US authorities have begun an investigation into the causes of Sunday’s train crash in the Bronx area of New York in which four people were killed and more than 60 injured.
The 05:54 from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station derailed as it went into a bend in the railway line near Spuyten Duyvil station.
It was reportedly travelling faster than the speed limit in the area.
The train’s event recorder, similar to a flight recorder, has been recovered.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to the site with instructions to inspect the overturned cars and interpret information from the recorder. They are expected to be on sit for several days.
‘Spinal injury’
The Federal Railroad Administration has also sent its own team of investigators.
Officials have identified the deceased as Donna Smith, 54, James Lovell, 58, James Ferrari, 59, and Ahn Kisook, 35. Three of the dead were found outside the train, and one was found inside.
Of the 150 or so who were on board, 11 remain critically injured.
One man suffered a spinal cord injury that could leave him paralysed from the neck down, a doctor told CNN.
On Monday, a second data recorder was found in the train’s rear locomotive. The NTSB said it hoped to download information on the speed and settings of the train from that recorder.
Some 26,000 weekday riders on the railroad were warned to brace for crowded trains during the first morning commute after the derailment.
Train service south of Spuyten Duyvil has been “suspended until further notice”, the train’s operator, Metro-North, said on Monday morning. Buses were being provided to the New York subway system.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the bend where the derailment occurred was in a slow-speed area.
The train appeared to be going “a lot faster” than normal as it approached the bend coming into the station, passenger Frank Tatulli told WABC-TV.
The speed limit on the curve is 30mph (50km/h), compared with 70mph in the area approaching it, Mr Weener said.
An official from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is quoted by the New York Times newspaper as saying that the train operator had reported that it was going into the turn too fast and that he had performed an emergency braking manoeuvre.
‘Dumping the brakes’
The operator told the first rescuers to reach the scene that he had “dumped” the brakes, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Earl Weener, NTSB: “We’ve okayed the uprighting of the cars to look for any possible further injury or fatalities”
Two eyewitnesses who live in the area describe the scene
Doctor Howard Katz says some of the injured had wounds “full of dirt”
Dumping the brakes is reportedly a last-resort move that has the effect of slamming on the emergency brakes on all the cars of a train at once.
Metro-North serves commuters from New York City’s northern suburbs. It is not part of the New York City subway system.
The accident was the second passenger train derailment this year for Metro-North, which, until Sunday, had never experienced a passenger death in an accident in its 31-year history.
On 17 May, an eastbound train derailed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was struck by a westbound train. The crash injured 73 passengers, two engineers and a conductor.
Eleven days later, a track foreman was struck and killed by a train in West Haven, Connecticut.
A freight train derailed near the same location as Sunday’s accident in July, damaging about 1,500ft (457m) of track.
Source: BBC News
