While we still don't know all of the details, and may not considering that the lone SUV driver perished, I count 6 warnings to the driver that somehow were missed.
1. The gate that came down on her SUV.
2. The bells at the crossing.
3. The flashing red lights.
4. The crossbucks.
5. The train's horn.
6. If the TV reports are showing that very crossing, then there is also a white sign that says as follows:
Although there was no bell at the crossing, there was a witness, Rick Hope, who repeatedly tried to get Ellen Brody herself, if not the SUV also, off the tracks.
I am working on a fire science project called Last Stop Valhalla about response to and incident command at "high severity, low frequency" incidents.
http://laststopvalhalla.com
The following is an early draft excerpt about what reportedly happened before the collision.
At 6 PM, Israeli Contemporary Designs, better known by its trade name, ICD Jewelers, at 75 South Greeley Avenue in the downtown business district of Chappaqua, NY closed for the night, and Ellen Brody, their bookkeeper, punched out for the day and said good night to owner Varda Singer. Co-worker Virginia Shasha sent her off with a friendly “See you tomorrow!” as they walked out to the cold, snowy parking lot in the rear, and asked Ellen if she was bringing yogurt tomorrow so they could both be “good” with sticking to their New Year’s diets.
Ellen Brody left a moment later, headed for an appointment with a prospective new bookkeeping client at the Starbucks at 51 East Parkway, next to the Scarsdale train station, not far from her home in Edgemont. She got into her 2011 Mercedes-Benz ML-350 and headed south on Greeley Avenue, then over the bridge that spanned the Harlem Line just north of the Chappaqua train station toward the Saw Mill River Parkway.
Her husband Alan later remarked that over the past few years, she had embarked on a business venture of her own, independent of the media business that they had done together in the past. Alan found and purchased the ML-350 for her in the fall of 2014 “to honor her graduation from a soccer mom in a minivan to an independent financial consultant”. He viewed the vehicle as a “modest trophy that made her proud of her growing enterprise.” Ellen liked the handling of the small SUV, especially in the bad weather that recently affected Westchester.
That evening, Alan suggested that she take the Saw Mill a few miles south to the Taconic Extension in Hawthorne, which connected with the Bronx River Parkway at the Kensico Dam Plaza interchange. Starbucks, he told, Ellen, is just off the Bronx River Parkway at the Crane Road exit. On a normal day, the fourteen and a half mile trip would have taken about twenty-five minutes.
Around that same time, Chief Joseph Streany of the Metro-North Fire Department (2641) left his office at 525 North Broadway, adjacent to the North White Plains Yard, and drove his Metro-North FD command SUV toward the Taconic State Parkway northbound to head home, and ended up stuck in traffic 27 minutes.
Around 6:20 P.M., Ellen Brody encountered heavy traffic on the southbound Taconic State Parkway. She followed the line of cars off the highway, turning right onto Lakeview Avenue, heading west. At the intersection of Commerce Street, she turned right again to head north on Commerce Street, past the office of Kensico Cemetery and on to a normally lightly traveled section of the road.
Richard “Rick” Hope, Deputy Commissioner of Public Works for the City of White Plains, was heading home behind Ellen Brody’s SUV as traffic snaked northeast on Commerce Street past Sharon Gardens cemetery to the north.
When Train 659 was about a half-mile and thirty-eight seconds away, the Commerce Street crossing flashers activated as Ellen Brody waited for the traffic to clear on the east side of the Commerce crossing. Rick Hope looked into his rearview mirror and saw that nobody was immediately behind him. He slowly backed his vehicle away from the crossing, anticipating that Ellen Brody might need room to do the same. “She’s going back up as soon as she realizes what’s going on…” he thought. Seconds later, the gates dropped. The one on the west side of the Commerce Street crossing first hit the roof of the ML-350 before landing near the back window, placing the Mercedes SUV between the gate and the grade crossing.
Chief Streany looked over from the northbound side of the Taconic and saw Train 659 pass at its regular speed to his left, as he sat stuck in crawling traffic. “At least they’re moving…” he thought to himself.
Rick Hope looked on, dumbfounded, as Ellen Brody exited her vehicle, walked to the rear, and looked at the dent and scratches that the gate had put on the rear of the SUV. Ellen Brody then tried to lift up the gate but was unable to do so. “Why won’t she get her car off the crossing?” he thought to himself, as his panic grew. Knowing that the train was just seconds away, he leaned out his driver’s side window and waved to her, urging Ellen Brody to get herself and her SUV out of the grade crossing. He then backed up further, hoping that Brody might get the message and get herself- if not her vehicle also- safely away from the crossing.
“Get off the tracks!” he yelled.
Engineer Smalls blew his horn as he approached the Lakeview Avenue grade crossing, about a third of a mile before the Commerce Street crossing, and about a mile past the Valhalla train station. At that point, Train 659 was traveling at fifty-eight miles per hour, common for that area of track, which was rated by the Federal Railroad Administration at sixty miles per hour under standard conditions. Train order bulletins for February third did not mention any speed restrictions in that area, nor were there significant conditions evident to the train crew that suggested that any change in operations was necessary or prudent.
Ellen Brody quickly turned and looked at Rick Hope. He thought that she finally got the message and would move to safety. Hope still thought that even if she were paralyzed with fear and could not figure out what to do, all he had to do was call out “come here” and she would.
Instead, to his horror and disbelief, Rick Hope watched Ellen Brody go back into her SUV, climb into the driver’s seat and fasten her seatbelt, and pull forward into the crossing, completely blocking Track 2, on which the train was traveling. Rick Hope looked at the flashing lights and heard the train horn. “Why…” he thought to himself “…why? The clock is ticking here!” He later recalled that never in his wildest dreams did he think that Ellen Brody would pull forward.
As the train was about 230 feet from the Commerce Street grade crossing, Engineer Smalls noticed that the reflection ahead was a vehicle that appeared to foul the Commerce Street grade crossing. Immediately, he put the train into emergency braking mode and began to sound the horn. Smalls called Conductor Larkin on the radio to declare an emergency. Knowing the train could not stop in time, Smalls braced for the inevitable impact as the speed decreased below fifty miles per hour.
Rick Hope helplessly stared at the crossing in horror as the train collided with the Mercedes with a loud crunching sound, and knew at that moment that the woman was gone.
Rick Hope exited his car and stared at the train grinding to a stop in front of him. He looked up at Car 4308, the last one on Train 659, which came to a stop in front of him, blocking the Commerce Street crossing. The passengers were still in their seats, some reading, and some looking at their phones, unaware of what was occurring at the head of the train.
The whole event had taken less than thirty-nine seconds.
NTSB reports: https://www.ntsb.gov...alhalla_ny.aspx
Rick Hope: http://www.lohud.com...tness/76677596/