A subway train carrying about 300 people collided with an out-of-service train near West 96th Street in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, causing the nearly empty out-of-service train to derail, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said.
Twenty-four people were injured when a northbound No. 1 train, traveling at slow speed, struck the second train, which contained four transit workers, around 3 p.m., according to M.T.A. officials. An internal police report about the collision said at least eight of the passengers were taken to hospitals. None of the injuries were considered serious.
M.T.A. officials said at a news conference on Thursday that the crash did not appear to be related to an equipment malfunction.
At a news conference on Thursday at the station, Richard Davey, the president of New York City Transit, the M.T.A. division that operates the subway, said that the out-of-service train had been vandalized, with many of its emergency brake cords pulled. Most had been reset, but one prevented the train from leaving the station when it was struck. The M.T.A. has opened an investigation into the cause of the accident, according to a spokesman for the authority.
“Thankfully, there were no serious injuries,” Mr. Davey said. “Obviously, two trains should not be bumping into one another. We’re going to get to the bottom of that.”
Mr. Davey said there had been about 300 people on the train carrying passengers in the collision. Firefighters and M.T.A. workers also evacuated another 300 to 400 passengers from a train behind it, after cutting off power in the station.
Service on the 1, 2 and 3 lines was suspended throughout most of Manhattan after the derailment.
Service on the northbound 1 train, between 42nd and 137th Streets, had still not resumed by around 6:30 p.m., the M.T.A. posted on social media.
Mr. Davey said he expected crews to be working at the station throughout the night. “It’s a little messy down there,” he said. “It’s going take us a while to get this service back and running.”
He said he hoped to have service restored for rush hour on Friday morning but could not guarantee it.
Lucas Mann, 17, a student at the Special Music School near Lincoln Center, was in the first car on the No. 1 train when he and other passengers “felt a big jolt.”
“I was scared,” he added.
Subway derailments have been rare since a spate of service meltdowns in 2017. At the time, the incidents revealed how much maintenance had been neglected, and after an overhaul, the system’s performance drastically improved.
The last train derailment involving passengers occurred on Sept. 20, 2020, when an A train came off the tracks around 14th Street. More than 100 people were on board, and three of them suffered minor injuries.
New York City’s transit system has been enjoying a period of stability as it rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic. Ridership is up, and an infusion of funding from the state has balanced its finances through at least 2027. It is also about to begin collection billions of dollars through a congestion pricing program that is intended to generate revenue for improvements to the city’s subway and bus networks.
Mariame Diallo, 15, said she was on a No. 3 train, behind the No. 1, when the out-of-service train derailed.
As she and other passengers waited for about an hour to get off the train, some people aboard opened the subway doors to get out onto the tracks.
Ms. Diallo, who was on her way home from school, said she had almost boarded the No. 1 train that crashed. Instead, she waited for the next train so that she could ride with three of her classmates.
“I guess it pays to stick with your friends,” she said.
Ana Ley and Emma Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.