By Sebastien Malo
VALHALLA, N.Y. (Reuters) - Investigators are collecting recording devices from the site where a New York commuter train struck a vehicle stalled on the tracks, the deadliest accident in the history of the Metro-North railroad in which six people were killed.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators are expected to spend the next week or so gathering evidence from the scene of Tuesday night's crash and interviewing witnesses, board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters at the site on Wednesday.
Sumwalt said the highway signals, rail signals and the crossing arms at the intersection and the train itself all have recording devices that should contain useful information about the lead-up to the crash near the suburb of White Plains north of New York City.
Metro-North, the second largest commuter railroad in the United States, suffered four high-profile accidents in 2013 that led to a safety assessment by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
In a March 2014 report to the U.S. Congress, the FRA identified three main safety concerns: "An overemphasis on time performance; an ineffective safety department and poor safety culture; and an ineffective training programme."
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state-controlled agency that has run Metro-North since it was formed out of preexisting railroads in 1983, said Tuesday's crash was its deadliest. The crash appeared to be the deadliest rail accident in the New York City area since March 1982, when a Long Island Rail Road train hit a van, killing nine teenagers inside, at a level crossing in Mineola, according to NTSB databases.
In more recent years there have been several other train crashes.
A Metro-North train derailed near the northern edge of New York City in December 2013, killing four people and injuring 70. In May 2013, two Metro-North passenger trains collided between Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut, injuring more than 70.
The NTSB released a report late last year that identified common safety issues with the railroad following probes of those accidents and three others between May 2013 and March 2014.
Some 650 passengers regularly take the train, which carries commuters through affluent New York City suburbs such as Westchester County, one of the richest in the United States.
On Wednesday, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said five train passengers and the woman who was driving the Jeep Cherokee sport utility vehicle that was stuck on the tracks were killed. Investigators said they do not yet have an explanation for why the vehicle became stuck on the tracks, or how long it was there.
Fifteen people were injured Cuomo said. One passenger remained in critical condition and another passenger in "serious" condition on Wednesday afternoon at the local trauma hospital, Westchester Medical Center officials said.
The hospital was treating four other passengers for less serious injuries. Dr. Joseph Turkowski, the burns unit director at Westchester Medical Center told reporters that some of the injuries treated overnight "weren't as severe as they could have been."
CROSSING COLLISION
An earlier traffic accident in the area had diverted a number of vehicles toward the crossing in Valhalla where the accident happened, according to Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.
"Apparently the gate went down on the car and she got out to put the gate up and at that point got back in the car to drive away," Astorino told reporters on Wednesday.
Astorino said he had long thought the road there to be dangerous, echoing complaints made by other local residents.
Collisions at grade crossings in the United States have declined by more than 40 percent to 2,091 in 2013, from 3,502 at the turn of the century, according to data compiled by the Association of American Railroads and the FRA.
Graphic: http://link.reuters.com/syh93w
Snow covered the blackened front car of the train on Wednesday at a crash scene crisscrossed with yellow police tape. Two large red lights at the crossing flashed intermittently alongside a sign stating: "Do not stop on tracks."
The fire seemed to have started after the Jeep's gasoline tank burst, Cuomo said.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said roughly 45,000 riders take the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line on an average weekday, about 14,000 of whom board north of where the crash occurred. Parts of the train line were closed on Wednesday.
The electrified third rail pierced the Jeep and then tore through the floor of the first car of the train, officials said, charring the carriage and sending billows of smoke into the air. Damage to the other seven cars was minimal.
Some passengers from further back in the train said in interviews they were not even aware they had been in a crash until a short time later when stricken passengers from the front cars and smoke began heading their way.
Some survivors walked to safety through the darkness of an adjacent cemetery, according to Nancy Dillon, who owns a nearby funeral monument store. "It was surreal, like in movies," she said.
(Additional reporting by Bill Trott in Washington, Nick Carey in Chicago, Dan Burns and Jed Horowitz in New York; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Grant McCool)
