About 700 passengers were evacuated from a stalled NYC-bound train after it lost electricity and air-conditioning early Saturday, leaving riders waiting in heat and humidity for about two hours. Ernesto Valverde, who was on board, said the train was less than a mile from the platform when it stopped.
Valverde wrote on X, "@NJTRANSIT you are deserving of an A grade on awful service and unpreparedness" and "Stuck less than a mile from NY Penn and there is no crew ready to pull us in. Make it make sense." He also said there was a diabetic passenger on the train. The ride was returning to New York City from a Chris Brown concert in New Jersey.
FDNY Response at 1:45 a.m.
The FDNY received the call around 1:45 a.m. and sent 21 units and 79 fire and EMS personnel to the disabled train. The incident was marked under control by 3 a.m., while passengers still remained on board without electricity and air-conditioning.
A woman in a YouTube video said riders smelled "smoke like rubber burning" before the lights flickered and the train stopped. She said the conductor told passengers the power was out, then added that NJ Transit personnel planned to walk them back to the station before that plan became too complicated.
Moynihan Train Hall Evacuation
Passengers were eventually removed from the inoperable locomotive at Moynihan Train Hall station and walked along the platform. The train had broken down less than a mile from the platform, but the evacuation still took about two hours from the stall to the release of passengers.
For riders, the immediate question is how a train that close to the platform still needed a prolonged evacuation. The answer in the record is the response itself: crews had to move people off a disabled train, manage the power failure, and finish the transfer at Moynihan Train Hall after the delay had already stretched past two hours.
