N Train derails - 5/4

[jtunnel]

News reporting a Queens-bound derailed N train at West 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.

No injuries. An "R" was taken out of service to "save" and remove the stuck passengers.

[nikon01]

Any word on what happened to cause the incident? A passenger on the train said on the news that someone pulled the emergency brake and the train derailed then. The crew tried to get moving again, but the train was already off the rail. Not sure how accurate these stories were.

Also, seems like NYCT acted pretty quickly to get everyone off the train with very little risk of injury. The passengers only had to wait 15 minutes for the rescue train to back up to the stranded train. Sometimes I have to wait longer than that for a "normal" running 6-Train!

[pennsy]

Must have been something as unusual as someone yanking the emergency to cause the problem. This is probably the first derailment on a mainline that I have ever heard of in the NYC subway. Were any of the supports for the subway damaged ? Did the passengers have to climb down onto the tracks and walk to the other train ?

[gjk1716]

I am a NYC Transit Track Inspector, and the derailment was a topic of discussion in my field office. I saw photos of the track, and it appears that some plates, which secure the rails to the ties, had broken fasteners. It happened on a curve, so the wheels likely pushed out one of the rails, causing the derailment.