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BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y. — Metro-North Railroad said Monday it will take all week to fully reopen train tracks that were closed by a weekend mudslide in Westchester County.
An estimated 1.5 million pounds of rock and soil slid onto the Hudson Line tracks in Scarborough, after a retaining wall collapsed.
Inspectors visited the backyard of a $3 million home, where a massive retaining wall supporting the yard with swimming pool collapsed on Saturday, sending 600 cubic yards of soil, rock and concrete onto the tracks.
“We were not aware of a particular condition in this location, but, as you know, we’ve had very, very heavy rain throughout the fall. It was raining very, very heavily on Friday, and this happened Saturday morning,” Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi said.
Watch: MTA update on Metro-North service
The railroad president said crews are making the best of a bad situation, breaking up boulders and using the rubble to reinforce the rocky buffer between the tracks and the Hudson River.
The wall collapse raises many obvious questions for investigators. Was the wall properly constructed more than a decade ago? And has it been properly inspected in the years since?
A Google satellite image shows a long white line in the backyard earlier this year, roughly corresponding to the area that collapsed on Saturday. Metro-North said it was not aware of any specific concerns with the property and noted there are many retaining walls on the Hudson Line.
“We have a retaining wall inspection program. We inspect them every three years,” Rinaldi said.
Rinaldi said an after-action report will look at all factors, including the inspection schedule.
The retaining wall was on private property, so maintenance is the responsibility of the homeowners, a Manhattan couple who bought the house in 2021 and were renting it to a tenant.
“I feel bad for the owner. This is gonna be a huge expense,” neighbor Bobby Gendron said.
Two of the four tracks between Croton-Harmon and Tarrytown have reopened and a full cleanup is expected to last through Friday. Only two trains were cancelled for the Monday evening rush.
Amtrak service has also been substantially restored.
Visit the MTA’s website and TrainTime app for additional details.
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