LIRR suspends some service ahead of storm

The Long Island Rail Road will suspend train service east of Speonk after Tuesday's evening rush to prevent trains from becoming snowbound in the oncoming storm, officials said Tuesday afternoon.

No overnight or morning trains will run between Speonk and Montauk after Tuesday's 6:17 p.m. train passes Jamaica station, the railroad said. That train is scheduled to arrive in Montauk at 9:07 p.m.

Beginning with the 8:53 p.m. train from Jamaica, buses will provide service, the LIRR said. That train would have arrived in Montauk at 11:57 p.m.

Starting Wednesday morning, all train service will be suspended between Ronkonkoma and Greenport on the Main Line.

The East End service changes were the first stemming from the storm forecast to hit the region Tuesday night.

Earlier Tuesday, transit officials said 600 LIRR workers will fight the overnight storm as part of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority-wide "all hands on deck" effort, with officials resolute there will be no repeat of riders' frozen frustration during the blizzard of Dec. 27.

"It will be a long night," LIRR president Helena Williams said at a pre-storm MTA briefing in midtown Manhattan, "but we will be out there telling our customers what is the level of service we will be able to provide in the morning."

Crucial switches at the Jamaica and Hicksville stations will get special attention, with an increase of 50 people manning the switches at Jamaica to prevent freezing or incapacitation. If the storm forces further service suspensions, Williams said the railroad will do everything possible to keep the busy Babylon, Huntington, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma branches running.

The other message from LIRR officials - a lesson from the December blizzard - is getting good information to riders, particularly making sure the electronic message signs work properly or default to a message that tells passengers to consult the Web.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said it is impossible to predict how the LIRR and other part of the region's transit system will withstand the impending snowstorm or what the Wednesday morning commute will be like.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, MTA officials said the huge transit agency's commuter railroads, subways and buses already are on their highest weather alert, with snow-fighting equipment being prepared and positioned and extra crews called in. For the LIRR, that includes special deicer trains that travel the system coating the third rail with an antifreeze solution, as well as snowblowers, trains fitted with ice-scraping shoes, and diesel "protect engines" that could rescue a stranded train.

But members of the MTA's senior management team told a crowded room of reporters that, with the brunt of the storm expected to hit the region from late Tuesday through the early morning hours of Wednesday, many of the decisions that will affect the morning commute will be made while people are asleep.

This storm comes less than three weeks after the Christmas weekend blizzard that resulted in one of the biggest service suspensions in LIRR history, stranding hundreds of passengers in stations. Service was suspended on the evening of Sunday, Dec. 26, and wasn't fully restored until the next Wednesday.

The post-Christmas storm marked the first time the LIRR put into action its policy, adopted last year, to suspend train service when 10 to 13 or more inches of snow accumulates on tracks. At that level, trains have difficulty making contact with the electrified third rail. The policy is aimed at avoiding trains being stranded en route with passengers - as occurred last winter.

Tuesday, the LIRR president said the agency's priority will be to protect service on the LIRR's busiest lines.

"Our goal is to be able to serve our customers, but we have to do that in a way that ensures the safety of the riding public," Williams said. "We will be making careful decisions to ensure the safety of our customers."

Williams also said her understanding from weather predictions is that the worst of the snow is expected to fall in Suffolk.

In addition to assigning more workers to protect switches in Jamaica, the LIRR is also fine-tuning its communications operations after criticisms from riders last month that electronic station signs gave inaccurate scheduling information. Williams said if the LIRR can't get the signs to work properly, the signs will instead default to a message telling riders to check the MTA's website.

"It's not a nimble system," Williams said of the LIRR's electronic station bulletins.