Crashed New York commuter train was speeding: officials
Locomotive travelling at more than double posted speed limit prior to fatal derailment near Hudson River
A New York commuter rail train that derailed on Sunday morning, killing four people, was travelling at more than double the posted speed limit for the curved track where it crashed, officials said on Monday.
A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) review of the black box data recorders on the Metro-North train showed that the seven-car train was travelling at 82 miles per hour before it entered the curve, which has a posted speed limit of 30mp/h, said Earl Weener, an NTSB board member leading the probe.
The posted speed limit before the curve was 70mp/h, Weener said, adding that the train’s throttle was reduced to idle six seconds before derailing and the brakes were activated five seconds before the accident, which injured 11 people critically
That was “very late in the game” for the brakes to have been activated, Weener said. He declined to say whether the derailment was the result of operator error.
“At this point in time, we can’t tell,” Weener told reporters. “At this point in time, the data is preliminary.”
It was the latest in a string of problems to affect the railroad, including a May derailment in Connecticut that injured more than 70 people.
Service was suspended on the line, which serves 26,000 commuters on an average weekday, between the village of Tarrytown and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, according to the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) the parent company of Metro-North.
