High-speed train service into and from New York City halted by a derailment and collision Friday in Connecticut will resume Tuesday afternoon, Amtrak announced.

Amtrak will resume service between New York and New Haven, Conn., with the departure of Acela Express train 2171, leaving Boston at 3:15 p.m., and Acela Express train 2166 departing New York at 4 p.m.

Sixty people were injured, five of them critically, and rail traffic from New York to Boston was shut down after a Metro-North commuter train derailed and plowed into a second train Friday in Fairfield, Conn.

An eastbound train derailed at 6:10 p.m. ET and struck a westbound train between the Fairfield and Bridgeport stations, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority official told NBC News.

The accident led to the shutdown of service and huge disruption for commuters north and east of New York.

Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday.

Area hospitals reported seeing 70 people after the rush-hour collision. Two remained in critical condition on Saturday.

“The damage is absolutely staggering,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Saturday after a tour of the scene. “Ribbons on the sides of cars are torn away like ribbons of clothes. Tons of metal tossed around like toy things. The insides of cars are shattered.”

“We are fortunate that even more injuries were not the result of this very tragic and unfortunate accident,” Blumenthal said.

An eastbound Metro-North train derailed at 6:10 p.m. on Friday and was struck by a westbound train between the Bridgeport and Fairfield stations, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener told reporters on Saturday.

Investigators from the NTSB arrived in Connecticut at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning and planned to begin documenting the scene of the crash, Weener said. Investigators planned to spend between seven to 10 days on scene, and will conduct interviews with the train’s crew members, passengers, and witnesses.

“We will not be determining the probable cause of the accident while we’re here on the scene, nor will we speculate on what may have caused the accident,” Weener said.

Later on Saturday, investigators said they had zeroed in on a fractured part of the rail line as being of particular interest. It has not been determined whether that fracture happened before or as a result of the accident, they said.

The FBI is no longer a part of the investigation, authorities said.

St. Vincent Hospital in Bridgeport, Conn. said on Saturday that it saw a total of 44 patients, six of whom were admitted for treatment. All those patients remained in the hospital on Saturday and were reported to be in stable condition.

Bridgeport Hospital saw a total of 26 patients and admitted three. Two of those patients were in critical condition a day after the accident, and a third was being held for further treatment.

Passengers who were on the two trains described the rending collision in vivid terms.

“We came to a sudden halt. We were jerked. There was smoke,” passenger Alex Cohen, a Canadian who was riding the westbound train toward New York, told NBC Connecticut.

“People were screaming, people were really nervous,” Cohen said. “We were pretty shaken up. They had to smash a window to get us out.”

A female conductor helped other passengers evacuate the train despite herself sustaining back injuries, authorities said at a press conference late Saturday afternoon.

The Metro-North train that departs New York City’s Grand Central Station for New Haven, Conn., at 4:41 p.m., with an estimated 300 passengers, derailed near the I-95 overpass in Bridgeport, MTA said in a statement. The train that leaves New Haven’s State Street station for Grand Central at 5:30 p.m., carrying about 400 passengers, struck the derailed train, the statement said.

Amtrak service between New York City and New Haven, Conn. remained suspended on Saturday following the accident, Amtrak said in a release. Trains would not run through Sunday, and the train service said it could not give an estimate on when schedules may return to normal.

Amtrak service between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., remained as scheduled, Amtrak said.

Metro-North, which runs between New York City and its northern suburbs in New York and Connecticut, is one of the busiest commuter rail services in the U.S. There are four tracks on that segment of the New Haven Line, an MTA statement said, but two are out of service for replacement of overhead wires.

There was "extensive damage" to the track and the wire from the collision, MTA said. The train cars will remain in place until the investigation is completed.

NBC News Carlo Dellaverson and M. Alex Johnson contributed to this report.

Related:

• 60 injured, five critically, as trains collide in Connecticut
  

This story was originally published on Sat May 18, 2013 11:31 AM EDT

CHICAGO -- A derailment on an Amtrak train from Chicago caused by a mudslide forced passengers to take buses for the last leg of their trip Sunday morning.

No injuries were reported for the train's 86 passengers and 11 crew members on board, however, travelers were forced to finish the last 30 miles of their trip via buses, according to Amtrak officials.

A mudslide, repotedly involving 30 feet of earth, trees and rocks, derailed the last three cars on the Empire Builder near Everett, Wash., around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, officials said.

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The train, uncoupled from the three derailed cars, continued to Mukilteo, Wash., where passengers were transferred to Charter buses.

Crews were working to clear the debris and repair the track, which was expected to reopen Tuesday, and BNSF Railway was investigating the incident.

Courtesy of the Dowd family

Charles Dowd, 69, a retired San Francisco firefighter went missing en route to visit his son and family in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

A retired San Francisco firefighter was reported missing after he disappeared from an Amtrak train headed to Chicago.

Charles J. Dowd was traveling on a train from Emeryville, Calif., but when the train arrived in Chicago on Sept. 14, Amtrak officials found his luggage, cell phone and medication, but Dowd was not on the train, according to family members. His eventual destination was a visit with family in Montreal.

Family members say they are concerned because Dowd, 69, is potentially disoriented and needs his medication.

For more, visit NBCBayArea.com

"He has medical needs and does need his medication for high blood pressure and heart disease," daughter Jennifer Dowd told CNN affiliate KGO. "He is diabetic, but for medical reasons we obviously want him. We need to know where he is."

Dowd was last heard from by cell phone on Sept. 13, and was allegedly last seen by a train conductor near Omaha, Neb.

The conductor said a person who fits Dowd's description appeared disoriented and confused about his whereabouts, thinking he was in an apartment rather than on a train and that he needed to find the front door. Police have yet to confirm the man the conductor saw was actually Dowd.

According to CNN, the train made several overnight stops: in Fort Morgan, Colo., and in the Nebraska cities of McCook, Holdrege, Hasting, Lincoln and Omaha.

Dowd is described as a white male with blue eyes and gray hair. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs about 175 pounds. His family set up a Facebook page to help find him.

Dowd's children are traveling to Omaha Monday and plan to go to the Amtrak station at 3 p.m. CT to pass out flyers and search the area.

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Anna Marie Stickel never heard the train coming. The 14-year-old was listening to music on her iPod while walking along the railroad track, taking a shortcut to school after missing the morning bus.

An Amtrak train traveling south along the stretch of track in Maryland's Middle River struck her from behind, instantly killing the high school freshman on Jan. 5, 2010.

Anna's tragic story sparked a national study examining the dangers associated with pedestrian use of headphones, according to Dr. Richard Lichenstein, director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine Research at the University of Maryland Hospital for Children in Baltimore. She was among 116 cases studied. 

The findings: Wearing headphones while walking on roads can be a fatal distraction.

The number of people killed or seriously injured as a result of not being aware of their surroundings because they were wearing headphones has tripled in the past six years, Lichenstein said.

Results were published Tuesday in the journal Injury Prevention. The study found:

• The number of deaths of people wearing headphones increased from 16 in 2004-2005 to 47 in 2010-2011.
• The majority were male (68 percent) and 67 percent were under the age of 30.
• The majority of vehicles involved were trains (55 percent).
• 89 percent of cases occurred in urban counties.

Lichenstein and three researchers delved into the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, Google News Archives and Westlaw Campus Research Database from Jan. 1, 2004 to June 1, 2011.

"Sensory deprivation that results from using headphones with electronic devices may be a unique problem in pedestrian incidents, where auditory cues can be more important than visual ones,” the study cited.

Click here to read the original article (pdf)

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AUSTIN --  An Amtrak passenger train hit a home mover's box truck transporting at least one car in Hutto , near the intersection of State Highway 130 and State Highway 79, just before 10 a.m. Sunday morning.

Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said the train was the Texas Eagle , en route from San Antonio to Chicago. A total of 211 passengers were on board the train, which was making its way from Austin to Dallas at the time of the accident. An additional 14 Amtrak employees were on board the train.

Michael Knight of the Department of Public Safety said the engineer attempted to blow its whistle as it approached the crossing, where an 18-wheeler transporting a car was on the tracks. The driver of the 18-wheeler was ejected and is in critical condition at Williamson Seton Hospital. His name has not been released.

Read the original story on KXAN.com

"Out of nowhere, just pow," explained passenger Bailey Roberts who was on his way to Dallas.  "Then, I saw a body through the window."

Two additional passengers on the train complained of minor injuries but refused treatment. DPS also reported a minor diesel fuel spill occurred when the 18-wheeler was hit.

"We didn't go into panic or disarray," said passenger  Tabitha Tower. "But, the fumes from the diesel, it was just a lot."

Passengers on the train were being evacuated, taken by five Hutto ISD school buses to Hutto Baptist Church. From there, Amtrak will arrange alternate transportation, Kulm said. Amtrak will spend this afternoon clearing the scene and repositioning the train on the tracks.

Local law enforcement will be conducting the investigation of the accident. The Federal Railroad Administration may or may not choose to initiate an investigation into the accident. Both Amtrak and Union Pacific, which owns the track, will be required to file paperwork with federal authorities.

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