Let's Talk About Last Night's Spectacular Subway Meltdown...

By all accounts last night's subway commute was not specifically too good.

As you wish, Thrasher.

Our story begins around 6 p.m. when a manhole burst into flames in the West 4th Street station, causing signal problems and extensive delays. MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg says, "We had to stop some trains in their tracks so they wouldn't enter the smoke area, and it took a while to get those trains into stations. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we do it for safety—we obviously would never put anyone into a dangerous situation like that."

That gosh darn manhole fire crippled service on the (deep breath) B, D, F, M, R, A, C, and E lines.

Meanwhile, on the numbered lines, a "computerized signal system" caused delays on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. We always said the MTA was asking for trouble putting computers in charge! And then, according to the Lisberg, "a train on the 42 St shuttle opened its doors on the wrong side, which required us to take the train out of service while we investigated." This is freaky:

We're also hearing that some sort of "giant gelatinous cocoon" burst open on the G train, releasing the screeching, acid-breathing spawn of Beelzebub, but those reports remain unconfirmed.

The L train would have been cool, but then all these poseurs jumped on the bandwagon when their lamestream trains stopped running to L0sert0wn:

And here's the scene at Queensboro Plaza, where commuter Jonathan Hilburg says, "People on both sides of the platform were struggling not to fall off, and fights kept breaking out as no one wanted to move down the stairs, waiting for trains that weren't going to come."

Queensboro Plaza (Jonathan Hilburg)

Hilburg adds, "It took me about and hour and a half on what's usually a 30 minute commute. Once people started getting moving, I ended up walking the last 16 blocks home."

"Any of these problems would have disrupted the evening; all three of them together was a particularly bad confluence," says Lisberg. "We're sorry for the inconvenience we know this caused our customers. Now that we're routinely carrying more than 6 million customers per day, even the slightest problem gets magnified and is harder to recover from."

According to the MTA's website, there are currently delays on the 7 train and the N, Q, R. Lisberg also says a building fire next to the J tracks at the Van Siclen Station has disrupted J train service. Shuttle buses are running between Broadway Junction and Crescent until further notice. Here's a photo of that mess taken from the 85th street station this morning:

This one goes out to my man John Thrasher, by request.