NEW YORK -- Like a nightmare come chillingly to life, this twisted, ghost-like wreckage of a PATH train slowly took form yesterday as recovery workers at ground zero tore away at the rubble that had buried it seven levels beneath the Twin Towers site since Sept. 11, the New York Daily News reports.

Unlike many of the battered and broken items found in the debris so far, the train is clearly recognizable - a stark, eerie relic of the unforgettable horror of that day.

And miraculously, not a soul was lost aboard the normally jampacked commuter cars. Several PATH trains carrying thousands of rush-hour passengers entered the bustling subterranean station as the disaster unfolded.

The newly discovered train is the only one that did not get out before the collapse - but, thankfully, the only one there not carrying passengers at the time of the attack.

"It was out of service when the disaster struck," said Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority, which operates the trans-Hudson River PATH trains.

"There was nobody on board the six-car train."

Coleman said the train was waiting to return to Newark when the first of two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center.

Several PATH trains pulled into the station after the first jet slammed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11.

There, underground, a dramatic series of events played out - and thousands of lives were saved.

One train, carrying nearly 1,000 people, pulled in from Newark several minutes after the first crash.

But a train master, hearing of the tragedy taking place above, ordered the crew to put everyone waiting on the station platform on board with the others - and to head back to Exchange Place in Jersey City.

Passengers who had already disembarked from the train at the World Trade Center were evacuated by Port Authority police and other workers, according to the PA.

Another train bound from Hoboken, which also was carrying about 1,000 people, was ordered to keep its doors closed, and continue back to Jersey City.

The crew of a third train was ordered to leave their passengers at Exchange Place and race to the WTC station to evacuate commuters and PA workers.

Coleman noted just after Sept. 11 that no one was trapped in the station, which was damaged but not destroyed.

Above ground, PA police officers and commanders - including 37 who died that day - helped evacuate thousands of more people before the towers collapsed.

Now, with the recovery of the sole train left at the site, the PA is turning its sights to what will happen at ground zero.

There are plans to open a temporary station there within two years.

Long term, the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp., which oversees ground zero reconstruction, is considering building a transportation megahub at the site.

That hub might combine access to PATH trains, 14 city subway lines, and Long Island Rail Road trains, as well as retail shops.

The Transit Authority said last week that it plans to reopen two of three 1/9 subway train stations, closed by the attack, before the end of the year.