Two subway workers fell asleep driving a work train in Brooklyn — which jumped the tracks as the engine roared into DeKalb Avenue station.
The May 2011 derailment was a near-disaster and created chaos and delays along a half-dozen lines, including the Q, R and B.
Both Rip Van Winkles of the rails were disciplined — two of an astonishing 48 transit workers suspended for catching the “Zzzzz train” on duty in the last four years, according to records obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request.
One of the train operators, Robert Lesser, 46, who pulled down $104,214 in salary in 2010, was slapped with a 51-day suspension in November 2011 for the disastrously drowsy shift. Transit officials could not immediately identify his fellow sleepworker.
The 17-year veteran from Queens admitted to The Post he was dozing in the back of the train and his colleague was asleep at the controls. He blamed sleep apnea, a condition that can cause drowsiness and with which he was not diagnosed until after the incident.
“I dozed off,” he said, noting that the period between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. is the toughest on his overnight shifts. “That’s the time for the body to sleep.”
Both men kept their jobs.
NYC Transit bus driver José Rodriguez met a more bitter fate — he was fired in December 2010 for snoozing at the wheel.
Another driver, Alex Borrero, denies taking a catnap while idling in an M103 bus in Harlem at a traffic light — for which he was suspended for 20 days in October 2010.
“I was doing the last trip on my run, and I put my hand behind my head and closed my eyes while I was waiting for the red light,” said Borrero, who has been driving for 31 years. “Someone was doing a spot check and said I had my eyes closed and was asleep.”
Three transit workers were repeat reposers — who got spanked twice for hibernating on the straphangers’ dime.
John Wright, David Yuen and Barry Richards — all station agents in subway-station booths — received suspensions of up to 30 days for the infractions, but none of them learned their lesson the first time.
Wright, who made $73,000 in 2012, first got hit with a 30-day suspension for sleeping in January 2013. Then in June 2013, NYC Transit slapped him again for napping on the job — this time with a 22-day suspension.
In 2010, a Post reporter and photographer nabbed subway maintainers Frank Ryan and Robert Malandrino bedded down in their cars for the night instead of going out on assignments. They were suspended without pay for a month.
The Post witnessed Ryan and Malandrino leave the crew quarters on Houston Street shortly after they clocked in to work at around 11 p.m. on July 1. The two men, who each earned about $63,000 annually, returned to their cars, drove them down the street and settled in for a long summer night’s nap.
Clifford Prendergast, 50, was also suspended for snoozing in his car when he should have been directing late-night commuters from the 168th Street station in Washington Heights to buses because of A-line service disruptions, according to NYC Transit records.
“I was sleeping on my lunch time,” Prendergast told The Post. “It was about 4:30 a.m. It was raining cats and dogs. They’re paying you for your lunch time, so they don’t want you to sleep.”
Conductor Kwasi Amanfo, 32, got a 30-day suspension in May 2010 for dozing while working on the No. 2 train in Brooklyn.
“I was getting a house, and I was moving and stuff, and I really couldn’t get my rest,” said Amanfo, of East New York.
“I couldn’t call out because Transit has this strict policy about calling out.”
Transit also has strict policies about not catching enough zzz’s before coming to work.
“You’re supposed to come to work rested,” said MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg.
“It’s drilled into your head from Day One. The rules are clear.”
Amanfo believes his sleep deprivation actually caused him to pass out but said Transit officials suggested that medical tests required in such instances could cost him his job.
“They said you’re better off taking the suspension,” he said.
The four dozen denizens of dreamland were just a fraction of the nearly 6,000 transit workers disciplined since 2009. NYC Transit has 42,000 workers. The transgressions included:
- Nine physical assaults on riders.
- 35 instances of verbally abusing customers.
- 48 cases of criminal conduct.
- 347 workers absent without official leave.
- Two for “lounging.”