On December 1, 2013, a Metro-North Railroad passenger train derailed near Spuyten Duyvil station in New York City, killing 4 people and injuring 63 others. At 07:22 Eastern Standard Time (12:22 UTC) on December 1, 2013, the 05:44 Poughkeepsie-to-Grand Central Station passenger train derailed 100 yards (91 m) north of Spuyten Duyvil station.
It had been due to arrive at Grand Central Station in Manhattan at 07:43. All seven carriages and the locomotive were derailed on a curve just outside Spuyten Duyvil station. Four people were killed and 63 were injured.
The Fire Department of New York sent 125 firefighters to the scene to assist in the rescue operation. The Hudson Line was closed to rail traffic as a consequence of the accident.
A freight train had derailed at that location four months earlier.
This is Metro-North’s first accident involving passenger fatalities in its 30 year history, and its first accident involving any fatalities since a 1988 collision in Mount Vernon, New York, that killed one crew member.
A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was dispatched to the scene of the accident to investigate.
The cause of the accident was unknown as of December 1, although witnesses on the train stated that it was travelling “a lot faster than normal”. The train carried a train event recorder, which will be accessed to determine the train’s speed when it derailed.
Dec 3, 2013
Investigators have said that a train that crashed on Sunday in New York City was going at 82 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone when it ran off the rails. Four people were killed and more than sixty injured in New York’s Bronx borough. The Metro-North train from Poughkeepsie to New York City crashed on a curve. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating whether a mechanical fault or human error led to the train’s high speed.