Cars on tracks in 3 communities unrelated, LIRR says

Something unusual happened on the LIRR Wednesday night: vehicles became stuck on the rails in three far-flung locations at the same time.

First it was Bellport about 9:15 p.m., then another in New Hyde Park about 9:40 p.m. and finally in Woodmere just before 10 p.m., the Long Island Rail Road said.

The LIRR’s website showed five branches reported delays, and tweets warned of delays of more than an hour on some trains.

No one was hurt and by 11 p.m. the vehicles were off the track in all three communities, the LIRR said.

But the coincidence had LIRR spokesman Salvatore Arena scratching for answers.

“They’re absolutely not connected,” he said. “I know it’s rainy out there. . . . I don’t know if the rain had anything to do with it.”

It was not immediately clear why the vehicles got stuck either, he said.

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“I don’t think in any of these situations were trains nearby,” Arena said. “They just stopped in their tracks, just stopped wherever they were while the first responders got out to the scene to assess the situations.”

The one by New Hyde Park affected several other branches because it was the mainline where trains to Huntington, Port Jefferson, Oyster Bay and Ronkonkoma went their separte ways, Arena said. On the Montauk line, the vehicle was stuck in a one-track area, so trains in each direction were put on hold, he said.