Photos: No Serious Injuries After Commuter Train Whacks Bus In Garfield

No one was seriously injured when a commuter train clipped the front of a bus at a grade crossing in Garfield Monday afternoon, police said.

At the scene.
Photo Credit: *Michael Sarao*

The area around Midland and Outwater was closed to traffic while NJ Transit detectives investigated.
Photo Credit: *Michael Sarao*

The driver was OK. One passenger on the bus reported an injury that wasn't considered major.
Photo Credit: *Michael Sarao*

Plauderville train station.
Photo Credit: *Googlemaps*

Jerry DeMarco

07/09/2018 6:00 p.m.

Only one of the 15 people on the Community Coach-operated bus sustained an injury after the NJ Transit train hit the front of it near the Plauderville Avenue station just before 5 p.m., NJ Transit's Lisa Torbic said.

The injury wasn't considered life-threatening, she said, adding that none of the 100 or so people on the train reported an injury.

Bus riders told Daily Voice that the driver stopped midway over the first set of tracks as the gates came down.They said they yelled at her to back up but she couldn’t because there was a car directly behind the bus.

"Someone ran up and actually manually operated the door mechanism and people were able to get off the bus," one of them said.

The area around Midland Avenue and Outwater Lane was temporarily closed to traffic while NJ Transit detectives investigated.

Bergen Line train service was indefinitely suspended. NJ Transit dispatched buses to pick up the riders.

Train No. 66 left Middletown, N.Y., at 3:19 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive at Hoboken at 5:13 p.m.

Local police and EMS joined NJ Transit police at the scene.

Michael Sarao contributed to this account.

Click here to follow Daily Voice Garfield-Lodi and receive free news updates.