'After a long day, it was a little bit painful'
Miami-based investment banker Peter Archer has been using the LIRR to commute between Mineola and Grand Central Station all week. He said Penn Station closure indirectly jammed him up on Thursday.
"The commute back here took us a couple of hours. We had to exchange at Jamaica. That wasn't very fun," Archer told Newsday in Mineola on Friday morning. "It seems like a lot of people were going to Grand Central. Trains were packed … After a long day, it was a little bit painful."
When asked what he'll do if railroad workers go on strike over the weekend, Archer said, "I might have to talk to a couple of buddies here and just drive to work, which is going to be a headache with traffic."
The investment banker, who's in New York for business about three times a month, said he was anxious about how long a potential full-scale railroad closure would last.
"I'm pretty worried about my return to New York in a couple of weeks because of delays and many headaches for people," he told Newsday.
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.
'Parties were unable to reach a deal' The LIRR has gone on strike, beginning Saturday morning, for the first time since 1994. NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger reports.
