Subway Operator Is Killed in Manhattan Train Fire Believed to Be Arson

Danger found him anyway.

As Goble pulled his No. 2 train into a station along the northern edge of Central Park early Friday, he heard the train’s conductor yell that there was heavy smoke and fire in the front of the train, one car away from where Goble sat.

In a mad dash, he and the conductor rushed to evacuate passengers as fire consumed the car. His colleague then managed to escape the smoke-filled station.

But Goble did not. When emergency workers arrived, they found him lying unconscious on the tracks, officials said. They believe he was trying to flee from the burning train into the subway tunnel when he was overcome by smoke and collapsed.

Goble was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Investigators think the fire was started intentionally.

“I wouldn’t have expected it to be any different,” said Earl Holland, 59, his longtime neighbor after hearing reports that Goble was trying to save passengers.

“Being a motorman on a train is like being the captain of a ship,” Holland added. “It doesn’t go down without you trying to save everyone on board.”

Police investigators said that the fire, which broke out around 3:15 a.m., might be connected to two other fires in Manhattan early Friday: one at the 86th Street station on the No. 1 line, and another at the 96th Street station on the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 lines.

A third fire on the street level was reported later in the morning at the 116th Street station on the Nos. 2 and 3 lines.

As the fire at the 110th Street Central Park North stop raged, a second subway car stopped just short of the station. Workers evacuated its passengers out of the tunnel through an emergency exit, transit officials said.

A photo circulating among emergency workers of the burned train shows a shell of a car, with blackened walls, melted seats and loose wires hanging down.

Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York City Transit, confirmed there was “extensive damage” in the car at a news conference.

“We are devastated by this,” Feinberg said. “This is a hard moment for New York City Transit.”

Seventeen other people, including five firefighters, were injured in the blaze, according to a spokesman for the New York Fire Department.

Four people were in critical condition Friday morning after suffering from smoke inhalation, and another person was in serious condition, but the injuries were not life-threatening. The five firefighters suffered minor injuries.

News of the fatal incident shook the community of transit workers — two other colleagues died in the last two days after contracting the coronavirus — and devastated Goble’s family and friends.

“He was an excellent father and a good man, and anyone who knew him would love him,” said Katherine Gray, his longtime neighbor. “We’re going to miss him terribly.”

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Goble grew up in the Flatlands neighborhood in Brooklyn, Gray said. She and his mother, Victoria Goble, raised him after his father died of an illness when he was in elementary school.

“He wasn’t my biological son, but I considered him my son,” Gray said in her doorway with tears in her eyes.

Goble was a standout gymnast at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, which no longer exists. Gray said that he was of such slim build that her son and his friends, who played football, would lift Goble for weight training. He loved being around his friends, she said.

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After he finished school, Goble initially wanted to be a New York Police Department officer, Gray and two other neighbors said.

But, fearing the job could put his life at risk, he joined the Metropolitan Transportation Authority instead, eventually working his way up to train operator, a job that Gray said he took “to better himself.”

Yolanda Strudwick, his cousin, called Goble “ hard worker.” “He just wanted to provide for his wife and kids and make sure they had everything they needed,” she said.

Shirley Holland, 84, a neighbor, said Goble encouraged her grandson to consider a career with the MTA, which runs the subway. Goble considered his profession “something I can do to make a decent living,” she said.

When he was not working, his family said, he spent time tossing a ball around in his yard with his oldest son, who is 11, and taking his youngest son, who is a few months old, to soccer games.

“He would give the shirt off his back to those he loved,” Strudwick said. “Even to strangers, as we can see today. For him to do this and risk his life for someone he didn’t know, that’s just the kind of person he was.”

The police said that as of Friday evening no arrests had been made, but they were investigating the deadly fire as a crime. It was unclear how the fire began or whether it started inside or outside the car, said Lt. Thomas Antonetti, a Police Department spokesman.

The MTA announced that it was offering up to $50,000 for information that could help the police identify anyone who may be responsible for the fire.

The fatal fire comes at a particularly painful time for the transit agency: Goble’s death Friday was the third death among the transit authority’s front-line workers in just 36 hours.

On Thursday, a 61-year-old bus operator, Oliver Cyrus, and a 49-year old train conductor, Peter Petrassi, died from the coronavirus, according to transit union officials. As of Wednesday, 52 transit workers had tested positive for the virus.

“For this to happen, after we lost two of our union brothers to the coronavirus, is hard to comprehend,” said Tony Utano, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the majority of the city’s transit workers. “These may be the darkest days that TWU Local 100 has gone through.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .