LIRR: Normal rush-hour commute expected after Wednesday derailment

A train derailment on the LIRR’s Port Washington line Wednesday afternoon led to numerous cancellations and delays on the branch and forced rush-hour commuters to scramble for other ways home.

By Wednesday night, service had been restored and an agency spokesman said riders could expect a normal Thursday commute.

The LIRR tweeted just before 8:30 p.m. that all trains were on or close to schedule.

The derailment was the second by an LIRR train in less than two weeks. On July 21, a train carrying LIRR employees derailed west of Penn Station as it approached the railroad’s West Side Yard leading to numerous delays.

Wednesday’s derailment occurred at 12:45 p.m. when two of the axles on an eastbound Port Washington train came off the tracks at the Harold Interlocking railroad junction west of Woodside, Queens, LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said.

More than 500 passengers were transferred to another train at the Woodside station by 1:30 p.m., Donovan said. There were no reported injuries. But the residual effects of the derailment continued to grow as the evening rush-hour commute approached.

Fran and Larry Sisselman, a retired couple from Bayside, said they were heading into Manhattan for dinner and a show with friends but feared they wouldn’t make it into the city on time.

Their plan was to see to “‘The Play That Goes Wrong” at the Lyceum Theatre, Larry Sisselman said, but “this is the train that goes wrong.”

Fran Sisselman said she was annoyed by the delay but not surprised.

“I know this happens constantly,” she said. “I’ve been lucky; it hasn’t happened to me for a while . . . You have to take things in stride when you live in the city.”

Passengers arriving at Penn Station late Wednesday afternoon were met by hundreds of commuters who normally would take the Port Washington line but were trying to figure out how to get out of the city. Eastbound customers at Penn Station traveling to Port Washington were directed to take any LIRR train to Woodside, then transfer to an eastbound shuttle train for service to stations Flushing Main Street through Port Washington, the agency said. Riders traveling west were advised to transfer at Woodside to any westbound LIRR train for service to Penn Station. Several westbound trains from Great Neck to Penn Station were canceled due to the derailment but were rolling again by 7 p.m.

“It’s kind of whatever. I’m just dealing with it,” said Eric Rosenblatt, 22, of Port Washington as he waited with others inside a crowded and hot Penn Station. “I’m getting home late.”

At the Woodside station, a similar scene played out with stranded riders waiting out the derailment as best they could, waiting for shuttle trains but also wondering when service on the Port Washington line would be back to normal.

Officials with the Long Island Rail Road released few details about how or why another rail car came off the tracks. The Saturday derailment in July led to more than a dozen train cancellations for the Monday morning and evening rush hour commutes and criticism from customers after LIRR officials waited more than 24 hours before notifying the public.

In response to the criticism, LIRR president Phillip Eng said the agency needed to first evaluate “how best to address the situation, make sure what equipment we needed, what staff we needed.”

High profile derailments and crashes in recent years on the LIRR and other rail lines in the metropolitan area have spurred investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board and demands from commuter groups for service improvements.

The engineer of in an LIRR train crash at the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn in January 2017 had been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, according to NTSB documents released last September. A July 2017 LIRR derailment in a Long Beach rail yard amid the “summer of hell” forced commuters to ride shuttle busses after trains on the line were canceled during the morning commute.

At a June MTA meeting that included Metro North and LIRR safety reports, Eng said he had met with commuters in an effort to get feedback on needed improvements.

“Thankfully,” according to a summary of Eng’s findings contained in the minutes from the meeting, “LIRR customers have let the railroad know what is important and what they want: They want to get to where they need to go without a second thought. They want a seamless, safe and comfortable trip.”

The report from the meeting said the LIRR recently staged “a low speed derailment, which was an excellent opportunity for LIRR to test its communications protocol and how LIRR departments interact with each other and with First Responders.”

Inside Penn Station on Wednesday, LIRR workers were on hand to provide information. Donning orange vests and toting iPads and printed train schedules, the workers gave commuters directions on what alternative lines to take. An MTA TV monitor posted messages alerting passengers of the delays and cancellations as well as updates on efforts to restore service. Multiple updates blared from speakers.

James Notaris, 49, an attorney who had planned to return to Manhasset from Penn Station before the derailment slowed down his commute, said the information released by the LIRR — including alerts to riders to monitor the agency’s Twitter feed and website for updates — was helpful.

Other than an expected 45 minute delay in getting home, Notaris said “there was nothing to complain about.”

“All the instruction went pretty well today,” he said while waiting for a train. “The use of the [LIRR] app definitely helped.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the train’s axle was broken.