Subways on the Nos. 4, 5, and 6 lines were severely delayed Wednesday evening after a section of wiring that controls the signaling system along the Lexington Avenue line failed, the Daily News has learned.
The trouble began around 4 p.m., sources told The News, when the so-called “automated train supervision” stopped working along the local tracks of the No. 6 line somewhere between the 86th St. station in Manhattan and the 138th St.—Grand Concourse station in the Bronx.
As a result, some Nos. 4 and 5 trains were running local in Manhattan, and all service on the line was severely delayed.
Straphangers were being advised to take the Nos. 1, 2 or 3 trains or the B, D, N, Q, R or W. The Metro-North Railroad was also cross-honoring tickets between Grand Central Station and Wakefield in the Bronx.
The ATS system, which is installed on the NYC subway system’s numbered lines, allows NYC Transit dispatchers to track trains and control switch tracks from the MTA’s midtown Rail Control Center.
Sources told The News that the transit agency suspected a faulty fiber optic cable had severed the connection between the Midtown subway nerve center and the Lexington Line’s local control towers at 86th St., 125th St. and 138th St.
Sources said NYC Transit had begun dispatching trains from local towers along the Lexington Line as a way around the outage, but heavy residual delays persisted as of 6 p.m.
Asked about the outage, an MTA spokeswoman said the signal issue remained under investigation.