COMMUTER TRAIN CRASH in New Jersey

Posted on 10/03/2016 | About New Jersey

A rush hour commuter train travelling at a high speed crashed through barriers, knocked out pillars and landed in the waiting area of Hoboken station in New Jersey, leaving a section of the train station roof on the first car. One person died and more than 100 others have been injured, most of them hospitalized. The train engineer was listed in critical condition.

Onlookers describe a train that did not slow down when it came into the terminal.Amid broken concrete, dangling cables and mangled metal passengers kicked out windows and crawled out of train cars.Governor Chris Christie said a woman who had been standing on the platform was killed by debris. Of the 108 others injured, 74 of them were hospitalized said Christie.Hoboken is across from the Hudson River. It is a popular terminal for commuters travelling into Manhattan (by ferry or a PATH commuter train) handling more than 50,000 train and bus riders daily.More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York City daily. Jennifer Nelson, a spokeswoman for NJ Transit, said she didn’t know how fast the train was going when it crashed.The PATH train station at Hoboken was the site of another crash when a train also over ran its stop, in 2011 when 30 people were injured. US Congress passed a mandate years ago requiring railroads to install positive train control (PTC) safety systems designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are travelling at excessive speed.Railroads have balked at the regulation and the timelines and the deadline has been extended repeatedly. It is now the end of 2018.Rail service was suspended in and out of Hoboken.