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Fractured rail studied by scientists to see if it caused derailment

By Bill Parry

The MTA was still investigating what caused the fracture to a rail found under a F express train in Woodside last Friday that went off the track and injured 19 of the nearly 1,000 passengers aboard. Ten patients were treated at Elmhurst Hospital Center and have since been released, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

The transportation agency is conducting a search for all the rails used from a batch sent from a longtime supplier.

Work crews worked all weekend to repair the stretch of tracks just south of Broadway and 65th Street in time for Monday’s morning rush.

On Tuesday, inspectors found another broken rail, this one on the F train’s Jamaica-bound express track just north of 36th Street in Astoria. The express trains had to be rerouted to the local line until normal service resumed Wednesday morning, according to the MTA.

The agency is reviewing its records in order to locate each of the 39-foot steel rails that were shipped from ArcelorMittal, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer that has supplied the city transit system for decades.

“Out of an abundance of caution we are looking for all of the rails from that shipment that was delivered in December. They are scattered throughout the system. We’ve seen no indication of a problem with any of the rails we have found from that shipment. Of the ones we have found, we see no indication of a problem with them,” MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said.

He added that the agency has not concluded that a broken rail caused the derailment and that the rail was sent to a lab.

“All we know for sure is that a broken rail was found under the derailed train,” Lisberg said. “We won’t know if it was the cause of the derailment until the scientists have completed their analysis.”

The rail was installed in February to replace another rail that was found to be cracked during a routine inspection.

Twice a week, crews inspect all 660 miles of track throughout the entire subway system, according to the MTA.

Rail problems were not solely in the subway system. The Long Island Rail Road experienced delays in both directions on the Port Jefferson branch Wednesday morning. A broken rail was discovered at the Flushing-Main Street station and needed to be replaced.

Meanwhile, the F train was found to have the most subway delays last year, according to a study released by the Straphangers Campaign Tuesday. There were 326 real-time incident alerts sent to F line riders in 2013, 28 more than the second-place No. 4 train, according to the study.

The MTA issues alerts electronically in real time to more than 90,000 subway subscribers, warning riders of incidents that result in significant service delays. The study looked at “controllable” delays deemed under MTA New York City Transit’s control.

All incidents of sick passengers and police activity were eliminated from the analysis. The study found that systemwide the number of delays had increased by 35 percent in two years with 3,998 alerts issued in 2013.

The numbers were compared to the 2,967 alerts in 2011, results from 2012 were not used because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, said, “The increase in alerts is a troubling sign that subway service is deteriorating.”

The MTA believes the increase in alerts is due to an increase in staff and better efficiency in providing service information.

“The alerts were never meant to serve as a performance metric,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “Our wait assessment metric, which includes both controllable and non-controllable incidents and measures the amount of time customers have to wait for a train, provides a more comprehensive picture of service quality.”

Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.