New York – Long Island Rail Road riders experienced another day of hellish commuting yesterday — and can expect more of the same for the next several days as workers scramble to repair damage from a switch fire in Jamaica.
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The crippling delays, which included only about 66 percent of trains running out of Manhattan during the evening rush, left Penn Station packed once again with frustrated commuters.
“I was over 20 minutes late this morning and I even got a much earlier train!” griped Amanda Fazio, 23, a sales rep from Massapequa. Last night, she used the Port Washington branch — the only one of the 11 LIRR routes running on time — to get home, and her mother had to pick her up from the distant station. Other riders just hunkered down for the long ride.
“I’ve got my newspaper. I guess I’ll get home when I get home,” said Bart Smith, an investment banker from Bay Shore. “This morning, I tried to get up early to get ahead of the delays, but it didn’t work out. It was a total mess.”
At one point in the morning, commuters got a triple whammy when NJ Transit and Amtrak trains also were delayed, due to power problems. Normal service resumed later in the day.
The LIRR delays, which allowed only about 60 percent of trains into the city during the morning rush, are expected to last “several days” said railroad President Helena Williams, who apologized for the “inconvenience customers endured.”
She said employees are working around the clock to repair a water-logged cable that shorted out Monday, causing a fire in a tower that controls switches used by all trains traveling through Jamaica.
More than 200 wires need to be checked for possible damage from the blaze, LIRR officials said. The exact cause is still under investigation, but it was likely weather-related.
Because the electrical system is shorted out, workers have to manually change the track switches with bolts. In the afternoon, only 84 of 127 normally scheduled trains were set to run. The remainder were canceled or combined with other trains.
The confusion had people scrambling to find baby-sitters and arriving home late for family obligations.
And the morning delays had people showing up late for work and bailing out early across the city.
“It’s so frustrating,” said Williston Park resident Jeff Fisher, an IT technician. “I really don’t want to be stuck at Penn Station.”
Fisher tried to get on an earlier Oyster Bay branch train and, hopefully, avoid the chaos.
“I was supposed to be on the 4:15, but that’s off the board. And now the 4:40 just went off the board!” he railed.
There was a slight increase in traffic at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel during yesterday morning’s rush hour.
Riders at Penn Station were encouraged to wait for a train traveling specifically on their branch because transferring at Jamaica could leave them waiting for more than an hour.
NYPD and MTA officers set up barricades outside Penn Station to hold riders waiting for trains to prevent platforms getting too crowded.
Hell?!