Downed trees, poles from storm shut down LIRR Oyster Bay Branch, MTA says

The Long Island Rail Road’s Oyster Bay Branch is shut down because downed utility poles and trees from Saturday night’s storm are blocking the tracks, according to the MTA.

The Oyster Bay branch runs between its namesake town and the LIRR’s Mineola station. An MTA spokesperson said crews are working to remove the downed poles and trees, but that service is likely to be suspended until at least Sunday evening.

Shuttle buses are operating between Oyster Bay and Mineola while the train is out-of-service, according to the LIRR’s website.

"Trees came down on two locations, knocking out 6 sections of transmission wire and snapping a pole," PSEG wrote in a statement. "Crews have been working with the LIRR since 11 PM last night and will continue to work safely and as quickly as possible to repair the damage and replace the pole. There were no customer outages associated with this damage. This is a very large job."

Saturday night’s storm triggered outages that impacted at least 13,400 customers, the utility company told Newsday. There were about 2,600 customers still being impacted as of about noon on Sunday.

A part of the Hempstead branch between Manhattan and Floral Park was also suspended due to planned work. The work will last through August and the service change will take place on weekends, the LIRR said.

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.