MTA officials were trying to determine Friday why an empty 1 train that had been taken out of service due to vandalism traveled through a red light near the 96th Street station, causing a collision with another 1 train filled with passengers.
Service on the 1 line remained suspended Friday morning between 137 St-City College and Times Square as workers tried to get train cars back on the rails following the derailment Thursday around 3 p.m. Service on the 2 and 3 lines was also disrupted.
New York City Transit President Richard Davey said at a press conference that the slow-moving crash occurred at a junction where trains switch between the local and express tracks. A 10-car 1 train carrying around 300 passengers had a signal to switch to a local track. On the local track was an empty 1 train that had been taken out of service because vandals had pulled emergency brakes.
MTA and officials with the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating why the empty train continued traveling despite not having the signal, Davey said.
Transit officials and federal investigators are trying to determine how the slow-speed collision occured.
“The passenger train we believe had a green light, a signal to proceed, and it was from going from the express track to the local track,” Davey said. “The train that was in distress, the one that was out of service because of the vandalism was proceeding, and it didn't have the signal.
As a result, it bumped into the train. Why? We don't know.”
“In any other scenario, if these are two trains working, one wouldn't have been able to proceed,” he later added.
Around 25 people suffered minor injuries, MTA Chair Janno Lieber said. Efforts to restore service were complicated by the low clearance in the tunnel, which makes getting the train cars back on the rails a delicate process, Lieber said.
“There's an army of people who have been down there overnight, haven't slept…and they're pretty far along in the process of re-railing that car,” Lieber said.
“Once that car is re-railed, we will be able to begin the process of a partial restoration of service. We're expecting that to take place sometime today.”
Davey added that the wheels of one of the derailed cars had been “mangled” and that it would need to be placed on to a new set of wheels to be removed.
Lieber said a fleet of 75 additional buses have been deployed to help commuters traveling along the 1, 2 and 3 train routes in Manhattan.
Subway derailments are rare, according to Lieber, whoA encouraged New Yorkers to feel confident commuting underground as usual.
The last derailment with passengers aboard happened on Sept. 20, 2020, when an A train came off the tracks around 14th Street. More than 100 people were on board, and three of them suffered minor injuries.
“Trains are not supposed to run into each other ever, but there's a reason this was a low-speed collision,” Lieber said. “People should feel comfortable getting back on the train and getting where they need to go.”
This story was updated to include additional information from the MTA and remarks from transit officials following a press availability.
