An unhinged straphanger tackled an on-duty MTA operator to the ground on board a stopped train at the end of a Queens subway line late Sunday, cops said.
The 38-year-old worker was clearing the M-line train of passengers at the Middle Village-Metropolitan Avenue station so it could be taken to a lay-up location just before midnight when the menace suddenly jumped him, police said.
The employee was violently knocked to the floor of car and had to be rushed to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center with back pain, cops said.
The suspect, described as a man in his 50s, ran from the train and was still on the loose late Monday.
The MTA referred any questions to the NYPD.
The attack came weeks after a 44-year-old woman working as an MTA cleaner was sprayed with an unknown substance on board a Bronx train, cops said.
The victim in that attack had been cleaning the train car inside the Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street station around 3:40 a.m. April 22 when she roused a sleeping woman and asked her to leave – prompting the straphanger to unload the spray, police said.
The alleged sprayer took off, and the worker was hospitalized with pain, redness and swelling to her face, cops said then.