Evacuated from Florida, student wakes up all alone in NJ Transit train yard

RARITAN —  Claire Connolly had a very bad day — one that with an evacuation from her college on Florida's Gulf Coast and ended in a NJ Transit rail yard.

The Highlands resident told CBS New York she got on the wrong train at Newark Liberty International Airport on Wednesday and fell asleep studying, waking up in an empty car at the Raritan rail yard around 5:15 p.m. She then tweeted her predicament in an attempt to get help off the train.

"I literally just fell asleep on my train. I'm in a train yard. There's no one on this train," Connolly said as she walked through the lit train in a video she posted to Twitter:

She recounted banging on the windows trying get someone's attention before dialing 911 and being rescued by Raritan Police.

Connolly, 18, told the station she drove six hours from the school in Fort Myers after it had been evacuated to Jacksonville for a flight to Detroit and then Newark.

She told the station NJ Transit responded to her tweet asking if she was still on the train after she had been picked up by her parents.

NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith said the agency is investigating the incident, as it is the conductor's responsibility to check the train before shutting it down.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com.

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