Honestly, if you're a regular commuter on the Montclair-Boonton line, you’ve probably felt that mid-commute anxiety at least once. It’s that tiny voice in the back of your head wondering if the signals are actually talking to the trains. On Friday, December 19, 2025, that anxiety became a reality for dozens of people. At about 6:47 p.m., just as the weekend was supposed to be starting, two trains made contact in Montclair, right near the Bay Street station.
It wasn't a high-speed disaster, but a New Jersey Transit crash doesn't need to be a movie scene to be terrifying. 17 people ended up with injuries. Most of them were non-life-threatening, but try telling that to Shaun Barrett, a passenger who told reporters his bag just "dropped all over the floor" before he was propelled from his chair into another seat. He was lucky he caught himself. The metal front of one train was caved in like a soda can.
Why the Montclair-Boonton Collision Still Matters
We keep hearing about "Positive Train Control" and how the system is supposedly "fail-safe" now. So, how do two trains end up on the same patch of track west of Bay Street? That's the million-dollar question the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has been digging into.
The NTSB investigators didn't even move the trains for a while; they wanted to see exactly how they were sitting. When you look at the history of rail in Jersey, this stuff happens more than we'd like to admit. Remember the 2016 Hoboken crash? That was a sleeper—literally. The engineer had undiagnosed sleep apnea. Or more recently, in October 2024, when a light rail train on the River Line hit a tree, killing one person and injuring 23. It feels like every time we get comfortable, something breaks.
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NJ Transit is a massive beast. We’re talking about 12 commuter lines, most of them sharing tracks with Amtrak and freight trains. It's a crowded house. Just this week, on January 13, 2026, we saw another reminder of how chaotic things are—a bus on the No. 34 line in Newark got clipped by a car that lost control on Market Street. The bus driver was hurt. The car driver was hurt. It’s constant.
The Human Element vs. The Tech
Usually, when a New Jersey Transit crash happens, everyone wants to blame the tech. But honestly? It’s often a weird mix of human error and bad luck. Take the old investigation of Train 3920. They found that a "debris strike" damaged a bearing seal, which made the wheel overheat. A scanner actually caught the heat, but because of a breakdown in communication, the wheel eventually separated from the axle.
In the Montclair case, the investigators are looking at:
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- Whether the signals were actually functioning at the Bay Street interlocking.
- If the "ASES II" system (that’s the specific PTC tech Jersey uses) did its job.
- Whether the engineers were distracted or if there was a mechanical failure in the braking system.
NJ Transit President Kris Kolluri has been pushing the "safety first" narrative hard, especially with the 2026 budget allocating $1.7 billion for capital improvements. They’re replacing old bumper blocks with "sliding friction" versions that can actually absorb an impact. They’re also putting cameras in 100% of the cabs. But cameras only tell you what happened after you’ve already been thrown into the next seat.
What Most People Get Wrong About Rail Safety
People think PTC is a magic bubble. It’s not. It’s a series of transponders and radios that try to stop a train if it’s going too fast or ignoring a signal. But it doesn't stop a train from hitting a tree that fell across the tracks in a storm. It doesn't stop a car from racing the gates at a grade crossing.
Also, New Jersey's infrastructure is ancient. Some of the tunnels and bridges are over a hundred years old. Saltwater from Hurricane Sandy is still corroding parts of the system that we can't even see. When you combine 19th-century tunnels with 21st-century software, you're going to have "glitches." Sometimes those glitches involve 400-ton trains.
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Staying Safe on Your Daily Commute
Look, you can't control the signals. You can't control the guy in the cab. But you can be smarter about where you sit. Veteran commuters know the drill.
- Avoid the first car. In almost every major collision, the lead car takes the brunt of the impact. If a train hits a bumper block or another train, the first car is the "crumple zone."
- Stay alert during "interlockings." Most accidents happen near stations or where tracks merge (interlockings). If you’re approaching Newark Penn, Secaucus, or Hoboken, put the phone down for a second.
- Know the emergency exits. Every car has them. Most people have no idea how to pop the windows or find the manual door release. Take five seconds to look at the stickers next time you sit down.
The reality is that NJ Transit is still one of the safest ways to travel compared to the Garden State Parkway. But that doesn't mean much when you're the one sitting on a stalled train in Montclair waiting for an ambulance.
Actions You Can Take Right Now
If you were involved in the recent Montclair collision or any transit incident, don't just "tough it out." Often, injuries like whiplash or concussions don't show up until 48 hours later.
- Document everything. Save your ticket, take photos of the scene if you can, and get a copy of the police report. Newark and Montclair police usually handle these initial filings.
- Check the NJ Transit "Travel Alerts" page. They are surprisingly transparent about "track conditions" and "signal issues" which are often code for "something almost went wrong."
- Watch the NTSB reports. They usually release a preliminary report within 30 days of a crash. It’s the only way to get the real story without the PR spin.
The 2026 budget is supposed to fix a lot of this, with hundreds of millions going toward "state-of-good-repair" projects. Until then, keep your head up and maybe sit in the middle of the train.