NEW YORK—A slow-moving Amtrak Acela train derailed then sideswiped a New Jersey commuter rain train on Friday, injuring several people and stranding hundreds of others, according to rail officials and witnesses at the scene.
Passengers aboard the New Jersey Transit train described hearing screeching metal as the Washington-bound Amtrak train hit the commuter train at while departing Penn Station at about 9 a.m. local time.
“There was a loud sound of mangling metal and you felt the reverberations of another train taking the side of our train I just heard screams from behind me as it traveled back,” said Jordan Geaandry, who was traveling on the train with his wife from the New York suburb of Montclair, New Jersey.
“Directly behind me was chaos visually, all of the windows pushed in and metal everywhere.”
