What you should know
- The National Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation after a northbound 1 train collided with an out-of-service train, causing a minor derailment just north of the 96th Street station on the Upper West Side .
- According to the FDNY, at least 26 people suffered minor injuries. 300 people had to be removed from the train that derailed and another 300-400 from a train behind those that collided.
- Service on subway lines 1/2/3 was seeing some signs of progress over the weekend, with lines 1 and 3 regaining limited service with the help of buses.
NEW YORK — Federal transportation safety investigators will review all New York City Subway operations in response to Thursday’s collision and derailment that caused minor injuries to more than 20 people, the chairman of the National Board said Friday. Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the NTSB was concerned because this week’s collision between two trains was the second serious subway episode in Manhattan in just over a month. On November 29, an MTA subway worker was dragged under a train and killed while working as a rail safety signalman.
“This is the second accident on New York City public transportation property in 37 days. That’s not typical,” Homendy said at a news conference at the 96th Street station, where Thursday’s collision occurred. “The NTSB has been very focused on the safety of the system…so coming here we’re going to want to look at everything the system, including how it is managed and monitored.”
Homendy said later Friday that the NTSB typically reviews all of a company’s operations and safety protocols in its investigations.
Pat Warren, MTA safety director, said the agency was aware of the NTSB’s comprehensive approach.
“For a subway system that schedules 2.7 million train trips a year, covering 345 million miles a year, this derailment was a rare event that points to the safety and resilience of transit in New York,” Warren said in a statement. released on Friday night.
The low-speed accident on the Upper West Side took place around 3 p.m. on lines 1, 2 and 3. Homendy said an out-of-service train with some MTA workers on board collided with another train carrying about 300 passengers on a detour, causing both trains to derail.
Workers on the out-of-service train were making repairs after someone pulled several emergency stop cords and disabled the train. After resetting most of the brakes and disabling others, workers were trying to get the train to the 240th Street rail terminal when the collision occurred, Homendy said.
There were no early indicators of a cause, he said.
Asked if there were traces of human error, Homendy said it was still unclear, but added: “It’s easy to blame humans. “Human error is a symptom of a system that needs to be redesigned.”
Earlier in the day, New York City Transportation President Richard Davey said the passenger train had the green light to move forward Thursday, but the disabled train did not. “As a result, it collided with the train,” he said. “Why, we don’t know, that’s still under investigation.”
Crews had been working to put the massive carriages back on the rails on Friday. Davey said putting them back on the rails afterwards was difficult because of the subway tunnel’s low ceiling.
Transit workers are “literally lifting it a few inches, moving it, lifting it a little bit, moving it,” Davey said. “So that process takes a while.”
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Our crews have repaired a train that derailed at 96 St on the 1/2/3 lines. Now that it’s been moved, they are inspecting tracks and infrastructure to determine what repairs are needed.
There are still significant impacts to service. Details: pic.twitter.com/GzYTPLyGjR
— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) January 6, 2024
Homendy said the subway system does not have cameras or data recorders that could help investigators. He said the NTSB recommended such devices nationally to another federal agency in 2015, but the proposal has not been approved, so the devices are not needed.
Thursday’s collision caused major service interruptions on lines 1, 2 and 3 that lasted until Friday. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said limited service on those lines was expected to resume at 5 p.m. and the 96th Street station was expected to reopen. The 2 train had been diverted to the east side of Manhattan.
Derailments and accidents on the 119-year-old New York City subway system are rare. The worst accident in the city’s subway history occurred 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 August 28, 1991, when a 4 train derailed at Manhattan’s 14th Street Union Square station. The engineer of that train was convicted of alcohol intoxication and served 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
He was convicted of alcohol intoxication and served 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
2024-01-07 03:58:25
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