A NJ Transit train derailed on Monday around 9:15 a.m. on Track Nine at Penn Station, officials said.
The slow-speed derailment of the three middle cars happened as train 3926 from Trenton rolled onto Track Nine in the station at about 9 a.m., officials said.
The impact was hard enough to break a wheel off of one of the cars, officials said.
Five people suffered minor injuries, the FDNY said. The passengers in the last four cars had to walk the tracks to reach the platform, officials said. All NJ Transit service into Penn Station was suspended for most of the morning.
FDNY Chief Roger Sakowich said the train had 10 cars plus a locomotive. About 1,400 people were evacuated, with roughly 600 having to walk the tracks to reach the platform.
“The biggest part of the issue was that the trains derailed in a way that it pinched the cars so that the doors to the cars did not align up. So we had to take people from the last four cars, which took a little bit of time, down onto the tracks,” he said.
Emergency responders attend to an injured commuter after an NJ Transit train derailed early Monday morning.
“After we removed power to make sure the scene was safe, we walked them along the road bed back up into a car that was closed to the station and removed them that way.”
In order to take the last injured person off the train, firefighters attached a locomotive and moved that train to another track and then got that person to medical help.
It took about two hours to get the scene under control and all the people evacuated.
“The investigation continues and the cause of the incident remains unknown,” said NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder.
Firefighters respond to the scene in an FDNY photo.
(FDNY VIA TWITTER)
Keisha Green, 26, found her commute fouled on her way to Hamilton, N.J. on a 9:01 a.m. train. She sat on the train waiting for it to leave, but after 15 minutes, the conductor announced they wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.
“They said that the train was derailed,” Green said. “He said it will be delayed. Last time it happened, it took several hours. I couldn’t take my daughter to school and I couldn’t go to work.”
Limited NJ Transit service out of Penn Station was back by 1:05 p.m., while service into Penn Station restarted at 11:45 a.m.
On March 24, a Washington, D.C.-bound Amtrak train derailed and struck an NJ Transit car at Penn Station. No one was injured. The crash shut down NJ Transit service for most of the day.
Gala was present for that derailment.
“The last one, it was a little bit easier to take proper off the train and through the train,” he said.
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