NEW YORK — A subway operator has died and 17 were injured in an early morning subway fire, the New York Times reports.
The fire was reported as a No. 2 train (Wakefield-241st St., Bronx, to Flatbush Ave.-Brooklyn College, Brooklyn) pulled into the 110th Street-Central Park North station at about 3:18 a.m. An off-duty transit employee told the operator that there was heavy smoke and fire in the second car of the train, and the two MTA employees evacuated the train. But the operator, Garrett Goble, 36, was found laying on the tracks when emergency workers arrived and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The injured included five firefighters hurt while fighting the blaze, which took until 3:50 a.m. to control and was still being extinguished at 6:45 a.m.
Police are investigating. Two other subway-station fires were reported at about the same time, while another was reported later in the morning.
A photo on social media shows a blackened shell of a car interior, and interim New York City Transit president Sarah Feinberg confirmed there was extensive damage to the car.
