Credit: Brian McClellen Facebook
Brian McClellen, a 21-year-old Cleveland-area native, has died at Westchester Medical Center in New York after being found Sunday morning on fire on top of a New York City-bound a Metro-North train in Connecticut.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Aaron Donovan says McClellen suffered burns over about 85 percent of his body. The railway line is unable to explain what McClellan was doing on top of the train. When he was found, the train had momentarily lost power in Greenwich, Conn. 

“The MTA Police Department is investigating why he was on top of the train and how he got there, and we will have updates as their investigation proceeds,” Donovan says.

McClellen worked as a model and actor in New York. He attended North Royalton High School.

From the New York Post on Sunday:

Investigators believe the victim, who lives near Union Square, was burned after coming in contact with the train’s pantograph, which collects power from the 12,500 volts in the wires.

The crew used an extinguisher to put out the flames atop the sixth car.


This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2014.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

4 replies on “Cleveland Man Found Burning On Top of Metro-North Train in Connecticut Has Died”

  1. Christ, what a horrible way to die. And I’ve a terrible feeling he wasn’t up on that roof voluntarily.

  4. Wow. A downvote on Squid’s statement. Yeah, that is a horrible way to go, hopefully he got on there during the time it lost power and didn’t have to suffer when power was restored. Condolences to his family and the NRHS community.

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