TRANSIT

School bus clipped by Chappaqua rail gate; driver ticketed

Mark Lungariello
mlungariel@lohud.com
  • A gate closed on a mini-bus at the troublesome Roaring Brook Road rail crossing in Chappaqua.
  • The driver faces a Class A misdemeanor and will appear in New Castle court May 28.
  • The crossing was the site of two March incidents in which drivers snapped the gate.
  • New Castle and MTA police have issued 38 rail crossing-related tickets in the first quarter of 2015.

CHAPPAQUA – A school bus was trapped by a lowering railroad gate at the troublesome Roaring Brook Road crossing Monday morning, seconds before a Metro-North train went flying through.

New Castle police said they charged driver Nancy Peralta, 53, of the Bronx, with stopping in the railroad right of way. There were two students, ages 17 and 18, and a bus monitor on board the short-style bus in addition to Peralta.

The charge is a Class A misdemeanor because one of the two students was under 18. She is due in court May 28.

Police said an officer was observing traffic at the crossing as part of an effort to ramp up enforcement of traffic laws there.

Lt. Daniel Cannon said Peralta stopped near the edge of the tracks, about 15 feet further forward than she should have. When the gate lowered onto the bus, Peralta tried to back up but stopped when the gate caught on some brackets. The train passed as the front end of the bus protruded into the right of way, Cannon said.

The Roaring Brook Road rail crossing is shown with a broken gate after an earlier accident, in March. The intersection's troubles continued Monday, local police said, when a school bus that had pulled too far forward was clipped by a lowering crossing gate.

No one was hurt in the incident, the latest in an intersection where the gate has been snapped by drivers twice in the last two months.

The danger of road and rail intersections have been a focus since a horrific Feb. 3 crash in Valhalla that killed six people. New Castle police and MTA police issued 38 traffic tickets related to rail crossings in the town during the first quarter of 2015.

"Maybe that's a testament to how much attention people are actually paying," Cannon said. "I can't understand why people would take such risks at train crossings."

Officials have called for constructing a bridge at Roaring Brook Road to allow vehicles to pass over the railroad tracks. A Federal Railroad Administration official visited the crossing in March and New Castle police said they routinely post marked cars there and have been issuing tickets in recent months.

The bus is owned by Mount Vernon-based Mar Can Transportation. A message left for company spokeswoman Debbie Lloyd wasn't immediately returned.

Twitter: @marklungariello