Middletown man is killed by train
BY MELISSA KARSH Staff Writer

RED BANK - About a half hour before champagne corks popped and the Times Square ball dropped, a 20-year-old Middletown man was struck and killed by a train near the Red Bank station, according to a NJ Transit spokesman.

North Jersey Coastline (NJCL) train number 3289 hit and killed Joseph Hardwood at about 11:30 p.m. Dec. 31, just west of the Red Bank train station, according to NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel.

The train, which was heading to Long Branch, departed from New York at 10:09 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Long Branch at 11:32 p.m., according to Stessel.

"The engineer of the train observed a person lying on the tracks ahead and immediately applied the emergency breaks and sounded the horn, but was unable to stop the train in time," said Stessel.

He added, "The person who was struck was unfortunately a fatality."

According to Stessel, Hardwood was lying in between the rails of the track at the time he was struck.

The about 50 passengers on the train were transferred to the following train, which delayed their trips about an hour, but no other trains were affected, according to Stessel.

Local police, as well as NJ Transit police and the medical examiner, assisted at the scene, according to Stessel.

A similar incident occurred in September 2007, when an unidentified adult male was hit and killed by an NJCL train bound for Penn Station in New York.