Metro users stuck in blocked trains while the signals reported plague in lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and S

The service is suspended on the seven lines; Here is what the MTA says:

MTA workers now manually report trains to move them forward, but the process is slow:

Mayor Bill de Blasio ransacked the MTA:

Update: The service is coming back … but the MTA says to avoid these lines:

A man on a train said that it took about 90 minutes to get from 33rd Street to 77th Street. Another woman who took the 6 train to 86th Street and Lexington said it had taken about an hour to get from Grand Central to 86th, the train stalling between 59th and 86th. "It was not so bad, they kept saying that the system was down," said the woman, but she explained that there was no air conditioning on the train.

Anderson Hilario, 24, of the Bronx, said his train 6 was stalled an hour and a half between 77 and 86. One guy was in a panic trying to smoke a cigarette. He was standing all the time, no place. "I'm angry," he says. "MTA owes me an Uber."

However, some lines in letters did not escape resolution of the problems. Blair Campion took the 7th Avenue B at 53rd Street and Lexington (she had been transferred from an E). "The D arrived first but no one I saw from the platform was able to ride on it," she said. "I did not think I could do train B that happened but a woman behind me decided to pick me up and shoved me in. I had an arm around my head to try to hold the ceiling and everyone was On the pier screamed when the second train arrived and was packed. "

Campion lives in Harlem. "Then train B made an express run from the 59th (which was good for me)," she explained, "but people were furious and in a hurry to get off." They never were also jostled and they never saw a crowd (or sweat) of that kind – it was nauseating. "

She added: "It was stuffy … People were not panicked but furious."

Update, 8:04 pm: MTA Director of Communications Tim Minton issued a statement describing what happened:

Lines 1-2-3-4-5-6 and Times Square Shuttle experienced a total shutdown at 5:50 pm due to a failure of the computer system that feeds our signals into Division A. For security reasons trains were required to maintain their position at the time of the interruption and some of these trains were between the stations when this occurred. We have worked to progressively deliver trains to stations while allowing technicians to restart the servers. We believe that no train lost power or alternating current during the outage.

The service began to be reinstated at 19:16. Service on all affected lines has resumed with significant residual delays. The lighting and air conditioning remained on while the service was interrupted.

An investigation into the root cause of this system failure is underway. The service on the lines in letters (division B) has not been touched. Pbadengers displaced from impacted metro lines were allowed to board the buses during the break. At the moment, there is no indication that it is a heat or electricity problem, but investigations are underway.

With the reports of Elizabeth Kim and Jake Offenhartz