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MTA To Investigate After Subway Riders Stranded

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- MTA officials were promising an investigation after an incredible ordeal for hundreds of frustrated riders who spent seven hours stuck on a stranded subway train.

Passenger Susan Jutt called CBS 2 Monday morning just after 5:30 a.m. She and approximately 400 other riders had been stuck on a frigid, elevated A train for just over five hours by that time.

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"We're doing OK. Most people are waking up and there's no water and no bathroom so it's a little difficult," she said. "Just about everybody on this train was coming from Kennedy Airport. All the flights were cancelled and there was really no other way to get out of the airport."

The train lost power when the third rail became covered with snow at the Aqueduct Racetrack Station. "There was no other way to get out of the airport, the air train closed down, so there were shuttle buses that took us to the subway," she said.

After her grueling seven hour ordeal, Jutt and her 400 fellow passengers were put aboard a working train bound for Manhattan.

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NYC Transit Spokesman Charles Seaton said snow drifts and ice on the third rail had stalled the trains at the Broad Channel and Aqueduct stops in Queens, north and south of Kennedy Airport.

Workers had been intermittently dispensing information to the passengers. At one point, the plan was to have another train come to pull the defunct A train out of the station.

"That never happened," Jutt said. "I have seen workers, I know they've been trying."

Most passengers remained in good spirits despite the frustrating situation. "I think everybody's been pretty good natured considering how difficult this has been," said Jutt.

By noon the trains had been pulled into stations. Afterwards, Seaton said there were no trains stuck anywhere.

"It's really still a mess out there on the subways and buses," Seaton said. "Let us clean up the rest of the system, get the trains moving, if you do not have to use mass transit today, if you don't have to go anywhere, don't."

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