Subway service still snarled as MTA works to remove derailed trains

NEW YORK – Subway service remained disrupted on three subway lines on the west side of Manhattan on Friday, transit officials said, a day after two trains collided and derailed, injuring 26 people.

Service was suspended on the 1 and 3 lines between Times Square and Harlem, and the 2 train was running on the 5 line in Manhattan. Although Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials had said they hoped to restore service later Friday, by the afternoon, the agency had updated its website to note that the suspensions would remain in effect throughout the day. Extra buses were deployed to carry passengers up and down the west side.

The derailments happened when a northbound No. 1 train carrying 300 passengers and an out-of-service train carrying four transit workers collided around 3 p.m. Thursday, the MTA said.

One derailed car from the train that had been carrying the passengers was still stuck in a subway tunnel near 96th Street on Friday as crews worked to get the car back on the rails, as was one derailed car from the disabled train involved in the collision.

The other nine cars of the passenger train were moved, said Janno Lieber, the chair of the MTA. But the stuck car was in a low-height area, making it difficult to mount it back on the rails.

“With only inches to spare in this tunnel, it’s an incredibly delicate process,” said Richard Davey, the president of New York City Transit, the MTA division that operates the subway.

The second train, which had been vandalized and taken out of service before the collision, remained in the area as well, officials said Friday. The wheels on the front car came off, making it difficult to move.

The problems began Thursday when vandals activated the brakes on a No. 1 train at 79th Street, officials said. That train went out of service and was slowly making its way uptown. As it passed 96th Street, it collided with the train carrying passengers as that train, also traveling north, was switching back to a local track.

Officials said the collision and derailments did not appear to have been caused by an equipment malfunction.

Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in the city Friday to open an investigation into the collision, which will supplement the MTA’s own investigation, Lieber said Friday.

Subway derailments involving passengers have been rare in recent years. The last one occurred Sept. 20, 2020, when an A train came off the tracks around 14th Street with 100 people on board, and three passengers received minor injuries.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.