MTA crew member told subway train to ‘stop and stay’ before derailment: report (Exclusive)

A crew member of an out-of-service MTA train involved in an Upper West Side subway crash and derailment that injured 24 was overheard calling over the radio that he had ordered the train to stop, the Daily News has learned.

“I told you to stop and stay!” an operator aboard the disabled train was heard saying over the radio moments after the Thursday afternoon crash at W. 96th St.

The comment was heard by the MTA’s Rail Control Center at 2:59 p.m., right around the time of the crash, according to an internal report reviewed by the Daily News.

A minute later, the Rail Control Center ordered all trains heading into the area to stop at their current stations. Within five minutes, the Rail Control Center got confirmation that the two trains had collided, the report noted.

It was not immediately clear who the overheard operator was speaking to, or whether there was more to the conversation.

The train in question had been taken out of service earlier in the day after vandals pulled emergency brake cables on the train near W. 79th St.

When crew members were unable to reset the brakes, the five lead cars of the 10-car train were turned off, disabling braking and power systems, NTSB investigators said Friday.

One of the three crew members on the train was then placed in the out-of-service front car to relay track conditions to a supervisor controlling the train from the middle position cab in the sixth car.

By Saturday morning, the MTA had repaired and removed both trains, and were “inspecting tracks and infrastructure to determine what repairs are needed,” the agency said on X. Service on the 1, 2 and 3 lines through Manhattan were still suffering “significant impacts,” the MTA said.

There were roughly 1,000 passengers on the No. 1 train that needed to be evacuated from the tunnel, according to updated figures outlined in the report. Earlier estimates had the number of passengers at just a few hundred.

An additional 407 passengers that were trapped on a No. 2 train struck behind the collision also had to be evacuated, the report notes.

FDNY and MTA officials said 24 people were injured in the crash, none seriously.

The apparent lack of communication between the two train operators lends credence to a recent New York Times report that blames the crash on human error.

Three transit officials with knowledge of the crash all confirmed to the Times that the crash occurred because of confusion over which vehicle had the right of way.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Friday that her agency was probing the crash, but wouldn’t entertain the human error theory until all investigative avenues were exhausted.

“It’s easy to blame humans,” she said at a press conference near the scene Friday. “Human error is always a symptom of a system that needs to be redesigned.”

The MTA referred The News to Homendy’s statement when asked for comment on the Times report about human error.

Homendy did criticize the MTA for not having inward or outward facing cameras on subway cars, and for not having “black-box” style data recorders on board to track train telemetry such as speed, throttle position and brake activation.

The out-of-service train was already a wreck before the No. 1 train collided with it, MTA officials admitted. The 10-car train was slowly making its way to a Bronx rail yard after a vandal or vandals had pulled multiple emergency brakes as it made its way to the W. 79th St. station.

As a result, the brakes on some of the cars didn’t reset, so the MTA had to cut power to them.

“The crew was instructed to cut [brakes and power] so they could move the train,” Homendy said. “Frankly, they couldn’t move the train at the time because [on] one of the cars, the brake wouldn’t reset.”

The five cars in the front of the out-of-service train had no motors or braking power and were being pushed by the operable cars in the back of the train when the crash occurred.

The vandalized train collided with the No. 1 train roughly at its midpoint, at the third car, a transit source told the Daily News.

Richard Davis, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the city’s subway workers, said Friday that four transit workers were injured in the smash-up.

The conductor who was serving as the flagger in the lead car of the vandalized train received the most serious injuries, to her neck and legs, Davis said. Her injuries were not considered life-threatening.

All Bronx-bound No 1 trains were rerouted to the express track between W. 79th and W. 96th Sts. because of the derailment.

The MTA managed to get partial service on the 1, 2, and 3 lines on Friday, but service on the No. 1 remained suspended between the 137th St.-City College station and Times Square, while service on the No. 3 was suspended between 135th St. in Harlem and Times Square. No. 2 train service ran Friday on the East Side along the No. 4 and 5 train tracks.

At the time of the incident, the passenger-carrying No. 1 train had a green signal to switch tracks — while the vandalized, out-of-service train had a red signal and no permission to proceed, the MTA said.

“As a result, it [the out-of-service train] bumped into the [No. 1] train. Why? We don’t know,” NYCT President Rich Davey explained Friday. “That’s still under investigation.”