Subway trains collide in Manhattan, causing derailment, officials say

NEW YORK – A subway train carrying about 300 people collided with a work train near West 96th Street in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, causing the work train to derail, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said.

Twenty-four people were injured when a northbound 1 train moving at slow speed struck the work train around 3 p.m., according to officials. An internal police report about the collision said at least eight of the passengers were taken to hospitals. None of the injuries was considered serious.

The work train, which was carrying four transit workers, was switching tracks when it was struck by the passenger train, the report added.

MTA officials said at a news conference Thursday that the crash did not appear to be related to an equipment malfunction.

At the news conference at the station, Richard Davey, the president of New York City Transit, the MTA division that operates the subway, said that the work train had been vandalized, with many of its emergency brake cords pulled. Most had been reset but one prevented the train from leaving the station when it was struck.

“Thankfully, there were no serious injuries,” Davey said. “Obviously, two trains should not be bumping into one another. We’re going to get to the bottom of that.”

Davey said there had been about 300 people on the passenger train in the collision. Officials also evacuated another 300-400 passengers from a train behind it, after cutting off power in the station.

The MTA confirmed in a social media post that a train had derailed near 96th Street and Broadway, and that service would be suspended “while emergency teams assist passengers.” Service on the 1, 2 and 3 lines was suspended throughout most of Manhattan after the derailment.

Davey said he expected crews to be working at the station throughout the night. “It’s a little messy down there,” he said. “It’s going take us a while to get this service back and running.”

He said he hoped to have service restored for rush hour on Friday morning but could not guarantee it.

Lucas Mann, 17, a student at the Special Music School near Lincoln Center, was in the first car on the No. 1 train when he and other passengers “felt a big jolt.”

“I was scared,” he added.

Mariame Diallo, 15, said she was on a No. 3 train, behind the No. 1, when the work train derailed.

As she and other passengers waited for about an hour to get off the train, some people aboard opened the subway doors to get out onto the tracks.

Diallo, who was on her way home from school, said she had almost boarded the No. 1 train that crashed. Instead, she waited for the next train so that she could ride with three of her classmates.

“I guess it pays to stick with your friends,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.