VALHALLA, New York — Justin Kaback hardly felt a thing, when the commuter train he rode north of New York City smashed into the Jeep Cherokee that was crossing the track late Thursday. He didn’t even know there had been an accident nor that the crash would kill the driver — a woman whose SUV, a transit official said, appeared to have gotten stuck on the track. Kaback also received no warning about the fire about to ignite in the first car of the train, where six more people lost their lives and a dozen more were injured.
The Jeep’s driver may have gotten out to see what was holding it back, a rail official said. She got back in the SUV and may have been trying to drive off the tracks when the Metro-North Railroad train hit her at Valhalla, the official said.
It pushed the Jeep 400 feet, said Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino. The third rail pushed up from the track and rammed through the entire first car of the train. Inspectors from the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the details.
Gasoline fumes
All Kaback felt was the train braking, coming to a complete stop, he told CNN’s Don Lemon.
“They shut down the engine. They cut power. They cut the air,” he said. Then there was dead silence.
The first word of anything gone wrong came from other passengers. They came back from the front of the train, saying they smelled gasoline.
“We’ve got to move to the back of the train,” Kaback said they told him.
While the passengers removed themselves from the gas fumes, a short announcement over the train’s internal loud speakers informed passengers that the train had struck a car, he said.
He heard no further details or instructions.
‘The train is on fire’
Outside the train, somebody yelled, “The train is on fire,” and the car he was in was growing hotter, Kaback said.
Kaback felt claustrophobic.
“That’s when I knew it was time to get off,” he said. The other passengers did, too. They threw open emergency doors and broke windows, he said. Everyone exited in an orderly manner without panic.
The snow on the ground, which sloped sharply down from the track, made climbing off the train difficult.
Once outside, Kaback took pictures of the first car of the train, as flames climbed out its windows.
Photos of the scene and areal video from CNN affiliate WCBS showed flames and smoke pouring out windows of the commuter train.
It was the only one that caught fire, Astorino said. “Everything is melted inside.” There was not much damage from the second car back.
The train was full when the accident happened, Astorino said. “There were about 650 (people) total on the ride home.”
