Video of minors operating subway train prompts response from NYC transit leaders

Trains arrive and depart from a subway station in the Coney Island section of New York, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK — A video that appears to show minors operating an above-ground subway train while the conductor stands by has drawn the ire of New York City transit leaders, who call it “reckless and unacceptable.”

The video posted to TikTok first shows one boy sitting at the controls, at one point honking the horn as the subway operator stands off to the side.

“Go,” the operator calmly tells him as the train passes an empty platform during the daytime ride. “Go, go, go it’s green.”

Later, a second boy wearing an orange safety vest, is in the driver’s seat while the employee holds a coffee cup in one hand and taps on his cellphone with the other. Both boys appear to be in their teens.

The New York City Transit Authority did not respond to questions about when the video was taken and whether the employee had been identified.

“What appears on those videos is reckless and unacceptable,” an emailed statement from the agency’s president, Demetrius Crichlow, said, ”and any transit worker who permits unauthorized, untrained people to operate trains will face consequences, including termination of employment and prosecution to the extent allowed by law.”

In January, the department released images and video of six individuals who they said commandeered an unoccupied train and took it for a joyride.

In September 2024, police said two teenagers took an empty subway train for a brief joyride that ended when it crashed it into another parked train car. No one was injured.

The Associated Press