F, M, E, R, N and 7 Trains Back on Track After Robbery Suspect Struck in Queens (UPDATES)

Photo courtesy of Jessica Ramos

UPDATE, Tuesday, 8 pm.: Now the B, C, A, D, F and G Trains are all having problems. Could this be the worst day in the history of the MTA?

UPDATE, Tuesday, 12 p.m.: Subway service appears to be back to normal on the F, M, E, R, N and 7 lines. Here's the lowdown on what caused this mess.

Original story below.

NEW YORK CITY, NY — Service was restored to the F, M, E and R Trains between Queens and Manhattan as of 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, albeit with "extensive delays," according to the MTA.

The N and the 7 Trains, which took overflow from the other lines, were running with similar delays.

The F, M, E and R were shut down between boroughs just after 8 a.m. when a 33-year-old mugging suspect was hit by a train near the 65th Street station in Woodside, Queens, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

He said the suspect tried to steal a 13-year-old boy's cellphone aboard a northbound M Train at the Northern Boulevard station, one stop east of 65th — then punched a Good Samaritan in the nose when he tried to intervene.

When police officers arrived, the M Train was halted with its doors open. So they conducted a "roadbed search," the NYPD spokesman said, and "discovered a male who had been struck by a train" on the northbound express tracks.

The suspect came away with only cuts and bruises, and is now in police custody at Elmhurst Hospital, according to the NYPD. (As is the Good Samaritan who got punched in the nose.)

A source familiar with the incident said the robbery suspect was hit by a Manhattan-bound F Train when he tried to flee the scene by jumping onto the tracks.

Morning commuters wrote on Twitter that all F, M, E and R riders in Queens were rerouted to the 7 line — causing sardine-like conditions and on the 7 platform and delaying their commutes ad infinitum.

The MTA told DNAinfo that the M had been suspended between Forest Hills-71st Street in Queens and the Chambers Street station in Manhattan; the R had been suspended between Forest Hills-71st Street in Queens and 57th Street-Seventh Avenue in Manhattan; and the E and had been suspended between the Forest Hills-71st Street and Queens Boulevard stations in Queens.