LIRR on schedule after delays earlier Tuesday

Long Island Rail Road trains were back on schedule Tuesday afternoon after morning delays caused by cold weather and signal trouble, railroad officials said.

Signal trouble in an East River tunnel had caused train delays of up to 20 minutes Tuesday, the Long Island Rail Road said. Five trains -- three of them passenger trains -- were affected beginning at about 10 a.m., authorities said.

All were eastbound out of Penn Station, and the delays were resolved by 11 a.m., LIRR officials said.

A railroad spokeswoman said it was not immediately known whether the signal issues at two different spots in the tunnel were weather-related, "but we won't know for sure until they are fixed."

She did say crews were spread out along the system Tuesday because of some minor weather-related issues.

The LIRR had experienced 10-minute systemwide delays in and out of Penn Station during Tuesday's morning commute because of "cold weather conditions," the railroad said.

Also, a broken rail east of Bayside, possibly due to the frigid weather, caused delays in the Port Washington branch, LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said. Trains on that branch were back on schedule by 1:10 p.m., he said.