A Metro North Railroad conductor was charged with felony assault after getting into an altercation with MTA police officers.

Thomas Moran was arrested Thursday night at Grand Central Terminal but his lawyer is insisting that it was Moran who was assaulted.

Moran, 48, of Cheshire, Conn., was held in custody overnight, spending part of that time getting treated for unspecified injuries at Bellevue Hospital. He was arraigned Friday night in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of second-degree assault and resisting arrest and released without bail. He's scheduled to be back in court on Sept. 27.

His lawyer, Jeffrey Chartier, said Moran was the victim in the case, beaten by at least one of the cops after refusing their demand to allow a man onto the New Haven Line train.

The man, who Moran believed was intoxicated and unruly, wanted to take the train only to 125th Street in Harlem, Chartier said. Moran told him the railroad's policy was that northbound trains to Connecticut only picked up passengers at 125th Street but didn't drop off there.

When the two MTA police officers got involved they urged him to let the man on, even though his ticket was for another train. Chartier said Moran went to tell his supervisor what was going on. When he finished and complained to the cops that they should have been helping him, he was attacked by one of the officers, Chartier said.

Chartier said Moran has been on the job for 17 years and has no disciplinary record.

"He's the victim here," Chartier said. "The only thing (Moran's) guilty of is doing his job."

A Metro North spokeswoman would not discuss any details of the incident or the arrest, saying only that the matter was under "internal review".

Twitter: @jonbandler