The regular commuters in River Edge, about 12 miles north of Hoboken, welcomed the partial reopening of the Hoboken Terminal despite the fact that some of them still have painful memories of the crash last September 29.
"That slab could have cut me in half," Sheilah Tiangco-Hugo said as she waited for the train with several other people Monday morning. "I started praying, and saying, 'Is this really happening?'"
Sheilah Tiangco-Hugo had been in the first car that day and remembered being jolted out of her seat when the train sped up as it approached the track's end. She braced for impact on the floor and watched as a concrete slab crashed down on the seat she had occupied moments earlier.
According to Tiangco-Hugo, her back still hurts from the crash. However, it did not stop her from boarding Monday's 8:11 a.m. train for Hoboken.
In an interview, New Jersey Transit revealed that eight of the 17 tracks at Hoboken Terminal reopened. Tracks 10 to 17 reopened, while tracks 1 to 9 will remain out of service until further notice as repair work continues in that section of the busy station, where commuters connect with other trains and with ferries heading into New York City.
New Jersey Transit already warned the commuters that its bus, rail and light rail services may experience crowding conditions and delays with rail service in and out of the terminal running on a modified schedule.
The resumption of service comes with a new rule that will require conductors to join the engineers whenever a trail pulls into the terminal so that, a second set of eyes will be watching as a train enters the final phase of its trip at stations where there are platforms at the end of the rails.
At the time of the incident on September 29, the engineer was all alone. He has also told the federal investigators that he has no memory of the incident.
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