Train-SUV crash kills 7 in Valhalla, New York

VALHALLA, N.Y. — A packed commuter train slammed into a sport utility vehicle on the tracks at a crossing and erupted into flames Tuesday night, killing seven people, the governor said.

The northbound Metro-North Railroad train struck a Jeep Cherokee in Valhalla, about 20 miles north of New York City, railroad spokesman Aaron Donovan said. Killed were the SUV’s driver and six people aboard the train, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, making this crash the railroad’s deadliest.

“You have seven people who started out today to go about their business and aren’t going to be making it home tonight,” Cuomo said.

The railroad crossing gates had come down on top of the SUV, which was stopped on the tracks, the Metro-North spokesman said. The driver got out to look at the rear of the vehicle, then she got back in and drove forward and was struck, he said.

The train shoved the SUV about 10 train car lengths. Smoke poured out of the scorched front rail car, its windows blackened.

Witnesses said they saw the flames shooting from where the crash occurred, in a wooded area near a cemetery.

Ryan Cottrell, assistant director at a nearby rock climbing gym, said he had been looking out a window because of an earlier, unrelated car accident and saw the train hit the car, pushing it along.

“The flames erupted pretty quickly,” he said.

He said from his vantage point, it wasn’t clear that the car was on the tracks as the train approached and “we didn’t see it was going to collide with anything until the actual impact.”

More than 750 passengers likely were aboard the train, including Justin Kaback, commuting home to Danbury, Connecticut.

“I was trapped. You know there was people in front of me and behind me, and I was trapped in the middle of a car and it was getting very hot,” he told ABC News. “All the air was turned off so there was no circulation so it was definitely scary especially when people are walking by on the outside and they said, ‘The train’s on fire. There’s a fire.”’

Metro-North is the nation’s second-busiest railroad, after the Long Island Rail Road. It was formed in 1983 and serves about 280,000 riders a day in New York and Connecticut.