The Associated Press is reporting the Columbia County man whose speeding commuter train ran off the rails nodded at the controls before the wreck, and by the time he caught himself, it was too late, a union official said Tues., Dec. 3. Engineer William Rockefeller “basically nodded,” said the leader of the rail employees’ union, relating what he said Rockefeller told him. Federal investigators said they still were talking to Rockefeller, who lives in Germantown, and that they would not comment on his level of alertness around the time of the Sunday morning wreck in the Bronx that killed four passengers. Two law-enforcement officials said the engineer told police at the scene that his mind was wandering before he realized the train was in trouble, and by then it was too late to do anything about it. A representative of the National Transportation Safety Board said it was too soon to say whether the accident was caused by human error. But he said investigators have found no problems so far with the brakes or signals. Read the full Associated Press story in the Daily Freeman.