LIRR: Tuesday morning commute to be normal
Passengers get ready to squeeze onto a train at Penn Station. (April 18, 2011) Credit: Craig Ruttle
LIRR officials don't expect any delays for Tuesday morning commuters after Monday evening's massive delays and cancellations due to a track problem in an East River tunnel. The problem delayed evening commuters, many trying to get home for Passover.
Trains began running on time or close to on time late Monday, LIRR officials said.
Monday's unspecified problem led to the Long Island Rail Road canceling 18 eastbound peak trains, and suspending westbound service into Penn Station from Jamaica and Woodside.
LIRR customers traveling into Penn Station were directed to take the subway to complete their trips. LIRR fares were honored.
MTA Police also restricted access to Penn Station Monday night to prevent overcrowding, but full access had been restored by 7 p.m. Officers tried to prevent passengers from bottlenecking at the 34th Street entrance and the 33rd Street escalators.
"We went to our contingency plan, which calls for canceling some trains and combining them with others," LIRR spokesman Joe Calderone said. "We had five- to ten-minute delays at the peak of rush hour. But we did get people home."
By 7 p.m., delays out of Penn Station had grown to 20 to 30 minutes, LIRR officials said. Westbound service between Woodside and Penn Station came back on line by 7:20 p.m.
To help customers leaving work early because of Passover, the LIRR had added eight extra eastbound trains between 2:08 p.m. and 3:48 p.m. But news of the track problem and resulting disruptions did not come out until after 3:30 p.m.
Charles Engleberg, an audiovisual manager for NBC in Manhattan, said he was on his way home to Greenvale when he heard of the problems in Penn Station.
He took a subway over to LIRR's Atlantic Terminal station in Brooklyn, and hopped on an LIRR train there.
"I've been doing this for 28 years, and the first thing you do is stay away from Penn Station," Engleberg said as he waited for a connection at Jamaica.
Cliff Cole, a spokesman for Amtrak, which owns and maintains Penn Station and its tunnels, said the problem involved a portion of track inside a tunnel in need of emergency repair.
With Zachary R. Dowdy
