NEW YORK -- As investigators continued to search for clues as to why a Metro-North Railroad passenger train flew off the tracks on Sunday, killing four people and injuring dozens more, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday that it appeared that the train was traveling too fast as it hit a curve in the tracks.
"I think it is going to be speed-related," he said on NBC's "Today" show. "It was a tricky turn on the system but it is a turn that has been there for decades."
The governor's comments came as workers used huge cranes to right the derailed passenger cars early Monday, clearing the wreckage and working to restore service for thousands of commuters.
The train's engineer, who was injured and remains in the hospital, has yet to be formally interviewed by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, according to government officials.
It is unclear how fast the train was going Sunday, but a Metropolitan Transportation Authority official said the engineer told emergency medical workers that when he realized it was heading into the curve too quickly, he "dumped the brakes," an emergency maneuver, and though the train slowed somewhat, it then derailed.
Cuomo said there were three possible causes for the accident: the condition of the tracks, an equipment failure or human error.
Some 26,000 people had their Monday morning commute disrupted. Metro-North's Hudson line is running limited service between Poughkeepsie and Yonkers, and is suspended entirely south of Yonkers.
Many riders put the delays in perspective.
Storms have shut down the trains, power outages have caused delays and equipment problems have resulted in headaches for people who travel by train to and from New York City.
But never before in the history of the Metro-North Railroad has the morning commute been disrupted by a tragedy like the one that played out Sunday morning, when the 5:54 a.m. train from Poughkeepsie flew off the tracks near the Harlem River in the Bronx, killing four people and injuring dozens more.
When she first heard about the accident, Michelle Manning said her first thought was about how she would get to work. Then she learned of the casualties.
"Four people killed, 11 critically injured, it's awful," she said at the Yonkers train station. "It's scary because I take that route every single day. I've never been afraid to take Metro North, so this is upsetting."
"It normally takes me 23 minutes to get to work," said Manning, 38. "Today I'm budgeting three hours."
Kelly Hart, another commuter, said any concerns about her commute were far overshadowed by sympathy for the crash victims.
"First it was, 'Oh my God, the people who are killed and injured,'" she said.
Investigators from the NTSB were broken up into four teams, focusing on different areas, including one team that was working to validate the information of the train's data recorder, which could provide key information about why the train may have been speeding.
The maximum allowable speed, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, falls to 30 mph, from 70 mph, for trains going along the curve where the crash took place.
Cuomo said the accident was much worse up close than it appeared from a distance.
"It was actually much worse than it looked," he said. "It was truly a horrific situation. It looked like a child's train set that was just strewn about."
By MARC SANTORA and MATT FLEGENHEIMER
The New York Times