Step by step with frustrated straphanger who walked the line
A foreboding darkness, endless grime, subway rats and even the deadly third rail weren’t enough to keep this straphanger from getting to his new job.
Matt D., 22, of Brooklyn, was one of two men to jump off a stalled F train and walk the tracks Tuesday when a busted signal at the 34th Street-Herald Square station wreaked havoc on the morning rush hour.
“I didn’t even think about it,” said Matt, who used his cellphone to record his harrowing trek to the next station.
Matt, who didn’t give his last name, was heading from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, to his 7 a.m. shift at his fireproofing job in College Point, Queens, when his northbound F train stopped in the tunnel just outside the 34th Street station at about 6 a.m. It was stuck for about an hour. “I was texting my boss nonstop, but I had no service,” said Matt, who had boarded the train at the Avenue X stop. “I just started two weeks ago, and I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
As the train operator made repeated announcements about the delay, straphangers grew increasingly impatient.
“People were bugging out on the train, saying, ‘We’re going to be late,’ ” recalled Matt, who was in the first car.
One rider, alsoo late for work,k, spoke out.
“If this trainn doesn’t move in five minutes, I’m going to hop offff and walk to thehe platform!” thehe man said, ac-ccording to Matt..
“It was fiveve minutes later,r, and I saw himm walking to thehe door,” said Matt,t, who then made the dangerous decision to join the stranger.
“I said to him, ‘You’re hopping off ?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ll come with you,’ ” Matt recalled. “I said, ‘I’m just going to do this.’ ”
The two then walked between the cars, climbed off and onto a ledge in the tunnel and headed for the light at the end. “I thought it was funny,” Matt said. “I was dying laughing. I couldn’t believe I was doing this to get to work.” Video taken by Matt shows him following the other straphanger on the two-minute journney. “I did this s- -t llike five years aago,” the man — who was in his 20s and told Matt hhe works for Con Edison — can be heard saying. Matt, who had nnever ventured oonto the tracks before, recalled thinking, “I hope hhe knows what he’sh doing.” They walked in the middle of the tracks — precariously close to the third rail. “I didn’t even realize about the third rail, that I could have gotten electrocuted,” Matt said. The pair got up to the platform at 34th Street using a service ladder — emerging to the surprise of waiting commuters. “They were shocked,” he said. “I felt bad for the people who were just standing there waiting for the train to come.”
Matt immediately sent his boss text messages explaining that he had been stuck on a train and also sent him the video.
“He was laughing and said I was crazy,” recalled Matt, who then walked to the 42nd StreetBryant Park station to catch the 7 train to his job site.
Matt called friends — and his mother — to tell them what he had just endured.
“They couldn’t believe I was stuck in the train for that long,” he recalled. “They said I was crazy for even doing that.
“I could have been killed going to work!” Matt said with a chuckle.
He also could have been arrested for trespassing.
Following initial reports of the rail excursion, the MTA issued a stern warning on Tuesday against going on the tracks.
“I cannot stress enough how dangerous this is,” spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “With a live third rail and the possibility of the train moving at any time, this individual could have been seriously injured or worse.”