19 Hurt In Woodside Derailment
The investigation continues into last Friday’s (May 2) derailment of a Manhattan-bound F train in Woodside last Friday, May 2, that left 19 passengers injured and subway service in western Queens snarled for days.
Officials said the train derailed on a broken track near the 65th Street station on the express line at about 10:30 a.m. last Friday. The middle six cars of the eight-car train went off the track; firefighters and MTA officials evacuated 1,000 passengers through the tunnel, with some riders being pulled through street grates.
An E train on the express tracks near the derailed F train, carrying about 100 passengers, was pulled to the Queens Plaza station and safely evacuated, with no injuries reported.
“I was riding on the on the train on the way to Brooklyn and I heard a slight noise and a bang, then a boom from the wheel area,” said a passenger, identified as Darwin, who was on board the train when it went off rail. “(Then) slight smoke, one lady was crying.”
No one in the car he was riding in was injured, he said.
Irfan Khundmiri of Flushing was on his way to work in Manhattan when the accident happened. He was riding in the second car, the first car that derailed.
“The train was fast, and it was a little scary,” he said. “A lot of people started shouting. I was on way to work.”
Nobody was visibly hurt in that car, according to Khundmiri. He said he was stuck in the train car in darkness for nearly two hours.
“All of a sudden it hit something. The noise on the brake, we could hear that. Smoke started coming in the car from out of the car, (and) I got scared, the moment it hit. All of a sudden it was totally off the track,” he said.
He later went to the emergency room because of back and neck pain; doctors gave him medication for a pulled muscle and diagnosed him with anxiety related to possible post traumatic stress disorder.
At a press conference held nearby hours after the derailment, Fire Department Deputy Assistant Chief James Leonard noted the evacuation was calm and orderly, though four people suffered serious injuries.
“On top of that there was a substantial cloud of dust which scared people,” Leonard said. “It was dark and no ventilation down there.”
“There is some significant rail damage. The first car made it through. The evacuation went very smoothly,” NYPD Chief of Patrol James Hall added.
“The focus was on taking people off the train. Now we are going to focus on what caused the incident,” MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas Prendergast added at the press conference.
City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer was also on the scene of the accident and “got down here as soon as we could.”
“My office is not too far away and we could hear the helicopters from pretty far away,” he said.
“Obviously, we want to follow the investigation. The F train is obviously important for all of Queens,” he added.
“We rushed out here to make sure all the agencies were here. I’m very appreciative that no one was seriously hurt. We’re gonna stay close to the MTA on this one and we need to know how and why this happened,” Van Bramer stated. “It’s very concerning a train going straight through a tunnel on the express track would derail, We need to know what caused those cars to derail.”
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz added in a statement that she looked forward “to reviewing the results of the investigation into this derailment and hope those results lead to safety improvements that will prevent similar accidents.”
“We are fortunate in that recent safety enhancements have already made subway derailments extremely rare, but there is always room for improvement when it comes to safety,” she stated.
The MTA shut down the entire Queens Boulevard Line- encompassing the E, F, M and R trains between Queens Plaza in Long Island City and 71st-Continental Avenues in Forest Hills-for many hours on Friday and on the weekend while the evacuation, investigation and repairs were conducted.
Last Friday’s evening commute proved extra challenging for those relying on the Queens Boulevard line. Shuttle buses ran in place of subway service through the line; the M train operated between Essex Street and Metropolitan Avenue- Middle Village, and there was no R train service in Queens at all.
The MTA also cross-honored MetroCards at local Long Island Rail Road stations while service was disrupted.
Planned service disruptions on the J, M and 7 lines were cancelled last Friday while MTA workers labored around the clock to remove the derailed train and make repairs in time for the Monday morning commute. Normal service was restored by 5 a.m. Monday, May 5.
