Probe opened into US train crash, major disruption seen

US authorities opened an investigation Saturday into a rush-hour collision between two commuter trains that injured 60 passengers and severed a key rail link in the northeastern United States.

Investigators from the National Transportation and Safety Board were securing the site of the crash in Fairfield, Connecticut, bringing traffic to a halt until at least sometime Monday.

Officials were unable to say how long it would take to clear and repair the tracks, raising prospects for a major disruption along the key transportation corridor between New York and Boston.

The trains belonged to Metro North, one of America's busiest commuter rail lines, carrying around 280,000 passengers a day.

"Normal service through this area is not expected to resume until a full investigation is complete, the infrastructure is fully assessed and repairs are made," it said of a section between South Norwalk and New Haven, Connecticut.

AMTRAK said service between Boston and New Haven, Connecticut was suspended indefinitely because of the crash.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known, but Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told reporters late Friday that there was "no reason to believe that this was anything but accidental."

"We'll be looking at the braking performance of the train, the condition of wheels, the condition of the car, we'll be looking at the general condition of the tracks and the railbed," said NTSB spokesman Earl Weener.

He said investigators will also look at whether signal were operating properly and "how the crew behaved."

"Now that we've seen the extent of the damage both to cars and to the track system and to the catenary system, (the question) is when will service be restored through this area, and right now we really cannot give you good information on that," Malloy told reporters.

Eight people remained hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, Malloy said on his Twitter account.

The commuter trains were traveling in opposite directions when they collided around 6:00 pm Friday (2200 GMT), at the height the rush hour.

Alex Cohen, a passenger on the train headed to New York, said it pulled to a sudden halt and then suddenly jerked forward.

"There was smoke. People were screaming, people were really nervous. We were pretty shaken up. They had to smash a window to get us out," Cohen told a local NBC affiliate in Connecticut.

Sixty people were taken to hospitals after the crash.