MTA restores full service on 1, 2, 3, trains after Thursday's derailment
A closed platform at the Columbus Circle station in Manhattan on Friday. Credit: Bloomberg / Jeenah Moon
New York City subway service was restored on the 1, 2 and 3 lines following a train derailment that injured more than 20 people Thursday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Sunday.
The two derailed trains were moved and track repairs were completed at 96th Street, the MTA said shortly before 6 a.m.
“Grateful to MTA crews who have been working tirelessly to restore service for hundreds of thousands of riders on the west side of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn,” Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday night in announcing that the repairs were almost complete.
At about 3 p.m. Thursday on the Upper West Side, a 1 train carrying about 300 passengers collided with an out-of-service MTA train with four workers on board near the 96th Street station. More than 20 people suffered minor injuries and the derailment caused major service disruptions across Manhattan during Thursday's afternoon rush hour, authorities said.
The low-speed crash left the trains blocking both the local and express tracks in the northbound direction of the 1, 2 and 3 lines, which meant partial service could be restored only once the derailed trains were out of the way, MTA chair Janno Lieber said at a Friday morning briefing. Getting the last 10 cars back onto the rails was a complicated operation because of the subway tunnel’s low ceiling, added NYC Transit President Richard Davey.
For nearly three days, the derailment shut down 1 train service between South Ferry and Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street; 2 train service between Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College and Wakefield-241st Street; and 3 train service between Times Square-42nd Street and Harlem-148th Street.
A team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived Friday to investigate the cause of the collision. The out-of-service train was slowly moving north after someone pulled a number of emergency stop cords, and workers were on board to reset the brake cords, Davey said Thursday.
Derailments and crashes in the 119-year-old New York City subway system are rare. The worst crash in city subway history happened on Nov. 1, 1918, when a speeding train derailed in a sharply curved tunnel in Brooklyn, killing at least 93 people.
More recently, five people died on Aug. 28, 1991, when a 4 train derailed at Manhattan's 14th Street-Union Square station. That train’s motorman was found at fault for alcohol intoxication and served 10 years in prison for manslaughter.
With AP
Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.
'I'm going to try to avoid it' A trip to the emergency room in a Long Island hospital now averages nearly 4 hours, data shows. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.
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