A 93-year-old man was at the wheel Monday of a car that was sliced in half by a Metra train in Northbrook, officials said.

Irving H. Pesock of Northbrook was transported to Evanston Hospital after the crash, which occurred around 1:30 p.m., said Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile.

“His injuries were not life threatening, at least as we knew then,” she said.

A hospital representative declined to give his condition.

The reason for the crash is still a mystery to Metra officials, Reile said. The police report contains the names of witnesses, but no statements. A Metra officer visited the hospital Monday night to inverview Pesock, but it appears he could not determine what happened, Reile said.

Reading from the engineer’s written statement, she said the engineer went through the crossing at Dundee Road and felt a jolt. He then saw orange dust pass his window. He performed a visual check of the area, and stopped the train as soon as possible, the spokeswoman said.

“The engineer did not see the car,” Reile said. “It must have happened very quickly.”

She added that the crossing gates and signals appear to have been working properly, suggesting that the driver may have somehow driven passed the gate.

The fact that the engineer did not see the car is unusual in such instances, Reile said. Typically, the train operator sees a car on the track before striking it. She said the collision appeared to be more on the side of the train than the front.

Michael Shep, a spokesman for the Northbrook Police Department, said Metra was handling the investigation, and he had no additional information to add. But Reile said the traffic incident report she received from the police does not show that Pesock was charged with any wrongdoing.

Still, Reile said, the crash was horrific, and it’s fortunate no one appears to be seriously injured.

“Half the car was in a yard,” she said. “The other half was on Dundee” Road.

Bystanders tried to comprehend what they saw.

“He hit the gate, he must have,” said Marshall Dennison, a contractor working in the neighborhood near Dundee Road and Fair Lane. Standing near the crash site on Monday afternoon, he pointed to where a portion of the gate sat on the west side of the tracks.

“The lights were clearly blinking and the gate was down,” added Charlie Eastman, who was eastbound approaching the tracks, but did not see what happened just before the crash.

The contents of the the Pesock’s trunk were strewn across street — golf clubs, books, acrylic paints.

The front half of the car came to rest on the west side of the tracks.

“I was the one who opened the door, he asked what happened,” said Dennison, referring to the driver.

“His forehead was all scraped,” Dennison added. “It didn’t look like a fracture. He wasn’t talkative at all. He was pretty delirious.”

Dennison said Pesock was wearing a seatbelt and the airbag had deployed. Dennison waited for paramedics to arrive to remove the man from his vehicle.

John P. Huston contributed.