(The following article by Caren Halbfinger and Sean Gorman was posted on the White Plains Journal News website on September 21.)
BEDFORD HILLS, N.Y. — Twenty-nine Metro-North Railroad riders were injured yesterday morning when their train slammed into a truck stuck on the tracks at the Green Lane railroad crossing.
“My seat went flying forward. I went flying forward. People went flying forward,” said Christopher Brockmeyer, a North Salem resident. “It was chaos in the first car.”
“It might be nice just to stay home today,” said Brockmeyer, 34, who was waiting to catch a ride at Route 117 and Green Lane after the crash.
The crash occurred after an out-of-state trucker illegally drove his car carrier onto the Saw Mill River Parkway around 8:20 a.m. and exited at Green Lane. The lower-riding car carrier got stuck as the driver tried to clear the hump of the grade crossing, eyewitnesses said. The trucker, who wasn’t injured, had just delivered a load of new cars to a Mount Kisco dealer. After he got stuck at the crossing, he unsuccessfully tried to disconnect the truck’s cab from the carrier.
“It felt like the train was going to derail, but it didn’t,” said Peter Wilson, 49, who boarded in Southeast, where the train originated at 8:10 a.m. “Then everything got quiet. I was lucky I didn’t get hurt.”
The driver, See Singchaichana, 43, of Federal Heights, Colo., was issued four summonses. He was accused of failure to obey a traffic device, possessing a log record that wasn’t current and a fire extinguisher that wasn’t secured, and failing to clear a railroad crossing. He was driving for Continental Transport of Keenburg, Colo.
A woman who answered two phone calls to Continental twice said she had no comment and hung up.
Wilson and other eyewitnesses said a person with a broken leg, a compound fracture, had the worst injury, while others had cuts, bruises, scrapes and sore necks. The injured passengers were taken to hospitals, including Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco and Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where most were released after treatment. One was admitted at Northern Westchester, a spokeswoman said.
“The train started rocking back and forth,” said Ed Tagliaferri, 44, a public relations executive from Ridgefield, Conn. “You could see sparks around the train. Eight rows ahead of me, the seats became detached, and people went flying into the air.”
Mike Palotta, who has a lawn irrigation business on Green Lane, was at the accident scene and urged the driver to get away from the truck and call police. He then called Vinny Grasso, the owner of Northern Westchester Auto Body & Towing, whose business is next door, to see if Grasso could help.
“From the time Mike talked to me, to the time (the train) hit was two minutes,” Grasso said, adding that while he and Palotta were on the phone, the trucker and Palotta saw the arm of the railroad crossing come down and heard the train coming. “I said I can’t go over there till someone dispatches me. I wish I could’ve done more. It just happened so fast I don’t think there was anything anyone could do.”
Capt. Doug Peterson of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police said someone called 911 about five minutes before the crash to alert authorities to the problem, though it was unclear who called.
The 911 call was transferred to Bedford police, who then alerted MTA police. The rail traffic controller was on the phone with MTA police when the train hit the truck at 8:37 a.m., railroad spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. The engineer hit the emergency brakes when he saw the truck ahead of him on the tracks, but there was not enough time to prevent the crash, she said. The train was going about 50 mph, she said. The impact split the cab from the carrier. All six train cars went through the Green Lane intersection and were damaged.
A sign at the crossing reads, “To report a malfunction of signal at crossing, call 888-MTA-911-PD.” Had that number been called, Anders said, the train might have been stopped in time.
“The correct call was not made, despite an obvious sign at the grade crossing,” she said.
Steve Kulm, a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman, said most railroad crossings have similar signs, although some have more explicit notices that give a specific number for drivers to call if they stall at a crossing.
Uninjured riders were delayed about two hours by the crash and ensuing police investigation. They were bused to the Chappaqua and North White Plains train stations.
Off-peak service was affected north of White Plains, with one-hour delays, as riders were bused around the crash site, and 10 trains were late as a result. Regular service resumed about 1:45 p.m., Anders said.