MTA suspends F subway service in part of Brooklyn after Coney Island passenger train derailment
NEW YORK — Subway service was partially suspended in Coney Island on Wednesday when an F train derailed near the West Eighth Street-N.Y. Aquarium station in Brooklyn.
The train jumped the tracks just before 12:30 as it approached the Neptune Avenue Station, NYC Transit President Rich Davey told reporters at the scene.
“We have crews crawling all over this superstructure to see what happened,” Davey said, gesturing to the elevated track of the Culver Line, which carries the F train through southern Brooklyn.
“Our focus will be on the track — it looks like there may have been a track issue,” he said.
Davey added that the R160A cars of the F trains — unlike the R62As involved in last week’s derailment on the No. 1 line — are equipped with event data recorders that should aid in the investigation.
The F train was carrying 34 passengers and three crew members at the time of the incident, including a train operator in training, the transit boss said.
No one was injured in the derailment, MTA and Fire Department officials said.
F service remained suspended in both directions between Coney Island-Stillwell Ave. and the Kings Highway stations for hours after the derailment as crews awaited a crane to right the train.
The MTA was running shuttle bus service Wednesday evening, Davey said, adding that he hoped to have subway service restored in time for the Thursday morning rush.
Elisa Gales, a 61-year-old retired nurse, was riding in the first car with her friend Sharyn Costa, 80, when the derailment happened.
“We went forward and jerked back,” Gales said. “I said ‘Oh shoot, that doesn’t feel right.'”
“I’m thinking that it might’ve been a derailment,” she continued. “I’m not good with trains or nothing, but I knew — I felt that feeling — that it might’ve been that.”
Gales said she grabbed on to Costa to keep her friend from sliding in her seat.
The mood in the train was calm, Gales said, even after a garbled announcement that they’d have to wait to be evacuated.
“We were patient. Nobody freaked out,” she said. “It was amazing.”
Both women said it took about 45 minutes to be evacuated onto a rescue train.
From the ground, the fourth car from the front of the Queens-bound F-train train appeared visibly askew.
Photos from the scene, shared with the New York Daily News, showed at least one of the fourth car’s trucks — a unit that contains motors, brakes and wheels — nearly a foot off the rails.
MTA workers and firefighters at the scene of the derailment in Coney Island. The section of track where the crash occurred was last inspected in November by the MTA’s track geometry car, which measures the alignment of the rails and alerts the agency to any imperfections on the rails’ surface.
“As far as we know, there were no issues,” Davey said.
Wednesday’s incident was the second reported subway passenger train derailment since a No. 1 train derailed in Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday, injuring more than two dozen and knocking out service on the Upper West Side for two days.
That derailment, sparked by a collision between a passenger train and a train that had been taken out of service due to vandalism, had little in common with the Coney Island incident, Davey said.
“At this point, the collision we had last week and the derailment today don’t seem like they’re connected at all,” he said.
“Customers should feel safe using the (subway) service,” Davey added. “I will be tonight.”
Costa, who had been riding in the first car along with Gales, agreed.
“I really wasn’t scared — It wasn’t scary,” she said.
“I can’t wait to tell my brother, because he used to work on the trains,” she added. “He’ll love this story.”
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