MTA investigating ‘track issues’ as cause of F train derailment in Coney Island

January 11, 2024 Mary Frost

The scene at Wednesday’s F train derailment. Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA

Share this:

CONEY ISLAND — NYC Transit is focusing on “track issues” as a possible cause of Wednesday’s F train derailment in Coney Island, NYCT President Richard Davey said at a press conference following the incident, which took place at roughly 12:20 p.m.

The term track issues includes track geometry, such an uneven track or a split — though the geometry had been inspected as recently as November and no defects were detected, Davey said. “It’s a newer class of train so there are event recorders, so we’ll be able to get more information once we download that,” he said.

The train was traveling from the W. 8th Street station to the Neptune Avenue station when it derailed at slow speed just above a superstructure, Davey said. There were 37 people aboard including three workers, who were all safely evacuated by FDNY without any injuries.

(From left) MTA Chief Safety Officer Patrick Warren with NYCT President Richard Davey. Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA

Davey said Transit had no credible report of anybody pulling the emergency brake.

“Look, we’ll get to the bottom of this. I realize we had an issue last week as well. The collision we had last week and the derailment today don’t seem like they are connected at all,” he said.

Davey was referring to the subway derailment on Jan. 4 that wreaked havoc on the Upper West Side during the evening rush hour. In that incident, a northbound 1 train collided with a work train that was in the process of switching tracks near 96th Street. The collision caused injuries to 21 people on the passenger train, the first car of which went off track. The collision also caused the work train to derail.

Transit workers check the tracks at the scene of Wednesday’s F train derailment.
Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA

Transit brought in a large crane to re-rail the F train, which it could do since the derailment did not take place in a tunnel like the derailment on the Upper West Side. “This will not be nearly as complicated as the issues we had last week,” Davey said.

FDNY representative Mike Mandala said the evacuation was a relatively simple operation. “We had two rescue cars pull up to the train on each side to evacuate the people from the north end and the south end. It took about an hour to complete from the time of the derailment until the occupants were off the train.”