F train resumes service after Coney Island derailment, subway's 2nd within week

Full service on the F train resumed Thursday morning following a derailment at Coney Island, the second New York City train to skip off the tracks in a week, authorities said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said they are focusing on a "track issue” as they investigate the cause of the “slow speed” derailment that took place around 12:20 p.m. Wednesday, as a northbound F train left the West Eighth Street station, according to Richard Davey, president of MTA New York City Transit.

There were no injuries among the train’s 37 passengers, which included three crew members, Davey said. They were all evacuated onto other trains within about an hour, according to FDNY officials.

Davey said the train, which was a newer model, was equipped with an event recorder that will help provide information on what caused the derailment. Investigators’ “focus” will be on the condition of the track, Davey said.

“It looks like there may have been a track issue,” said Davey, who noted that “the track needs to be straight in order for a train to run on top of it safely and without a slow speed derailment, as we had here.”

Davey said a special piece of equipment that inspects the condition of train tracks “came through here as recently as November.”

“And, as far as we know, there were no issues,” he added.

As a result of the derailment, F train service was “severely disrupted” in Brooklyn, with no trains running between Kings Highway and Coney Island, according to the MTA. Most southbound F trains were terminating at Church Avenue, and there was “extremely limited” service between Church Avenue and Kings Highway. The incident also affected G line trains.

The MTA brought in a crane  Wednesday evening to help put the train back on the tracks, with the goal of restoring service in time for the Thursday morning rush hour, Davey said.

Service was normal by 7 a.m. Thursday, with trains running at slower speeds in the vicinity of the incident and continuing track inspection, the MTA said.

The F train runs from Coney Island to lower Manhattan and then cuts across Roosevelt Island into Queens, terminating in Jamaica.

The incident comes just six days after a 1 train carrying about 300 passengers collided with an out-of-service MTA train near the 96th Street station on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Two dozen people suffered minor injuries, and the derailment caused major service disruptions across Manhattan for two days.

Davey said the two derailments — occurring within the first 10 days of 2024 — “don’t seem like they’re connected at all.”

“Derailments do happen. They shouldn’t, but they do,” Davey said. “We’ll take a look and see what the issue was here, but our customers should feel safe taking the service.”

Appearing on WNYC public radio on Monday, MTA chairman Janno Lieber said last week’s derailment was not indicative of any systemic safety problem at the transit agency.

“That's a scary experience for some of our customers, and we definitely want to get to the bottom of it and minimize it,” Lieber said. “The good news is this type of event only happens apparently once every 10 or 15 million trips. Compare that to the auto industry, where there's an accident every 70,000 trips. We love the safety of mass transit by comparison.”

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.