The engineer of the Metro-North train that derailed on a 30-mph curve because it was traveling at 82 mph told investigators, “I don’t know. I was in a daze,” when asked what happened, sources told The Post on Tuesday.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, and I just hit the brakes,’’ engineer William Rockefeller told law-enforcement officials who arrived first at the scene after Sunday’s horrific derailment, which killed four, just north of Manhattan.
Rockefeller said he was jolted back to reality only after a whistle went off warning him he was going dangerously fast, according to the sources.
“It’s akin to like driving a car, listening to your favorite song on the radio and zoning out on it and then all of sudden, you say, ‘Oh s–t, I better slow down,’” a law-enforcement source said, quoting how the engineer described what happened to him.
It was “spacing out,’’ the source said.
Rockefeller said he then jammed on the brakes — but it was too late.
According to data from the train’s two “black box” recording devices, the brakes weren’t applied until just five seconds before the derailment.
The train’s throttle, or gas lever, was first thrown into the “idle” position, similar to putting a car in neutral, a source said.
A second later, the brakes were slammed. But it wasn’t enough to prevent the seven cars and push locomotive from jumping the tracks and rolling toward the Harlem River.
The holiday-weekend wreck left four dead and 63 injured just north of the Hudson Line’s Spuyten Duyvil station in The Bronx.