[2] Penn Central freight train WV-1 (with #2653, a GE U25B as its leading locomotive), traveling at 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) with 83 loaded freight cars and a caboose (73 from origin at Weehawken, New Jersey, plus ten more picked up en route at North Bergen), destined for Penn Central's Selkirk, New York yard, was heading toward the Gilchrest Road crossing and began blowing its horn.

The freight train ripped through the school bus, severing it into two sections, with the front half coming to rest a quarter mile (1,116 ft) down the tracks.

The rear section of the bus was torn loose, and fell off next to the tracks upside down with a number of students still inside, while several other students were ejected from the remaining portion of the bus, passing through separated floor sections and fell between the rails into the path of the train.

[5] Forty-five more students and Larkin were rushed to a nearby hospital, where 14-year-old Thomas Grosse died from his injuries several days later.

[7] Louis M. Thayer was part of the five member board of the Federal Agency to question witnesses and investigate the crash.

A special interdenominational prayer service for the recovery of the injured was held as part of the Palm Sunday observance at All Saints Protestant Episcopal Church in Valley Cottage.