On August 28, 1991, an accident just north of the IRT station killed five riders and injured 215 others in one of the deadliest accidents in New York City Subway history. The operator of a southbound 4 train was to be shifted to the local track due to repair work on the express one. He was running at in a zone and took the switch so fast that only the first car made it through the crossover, and the rest of the train was derailed. Five cars were damaged heavily, being scrapped on site, and the track infrastructure suffered heavy structural damage as a result. The entire infrastructure, including signals, switches, track, roadbed, cabling, and 23 support columns needed to be replaced. The derailment occurred at the entry to a former pocket track on the Lexington Avenue Line station, which was removed when the damage from the 1991 wreck was repaired,