Third rail issue in East River tunnel fire

A small fire inside an East River tunnel that caused some evening rush hour delays on the Long Island Rail Road Monday was caused by the electrified third rail coming into contact with another object, Amtrak officials said Wednesday.

Clifford Cole, spokesman for Amtrak, which owns and maintains the tunnels into and out of Penn Station, said that an old "protection board bracket" made contact with the third rail, causing the smoke and fire.

The bracket was previously used to attach a board that covered the third rail, to prevent anyone from touching it. That board was recently replaced, but some brackets from the old board remained, Cole said.

Amtrak crews are now in the process of removing all the old brackets from that section of track, said Cole, who did not know what the brackets were made of or how many needed to be removed.

The fire caused the LIRR, the Penn Station tunnels' primary user, to cancel 10 trains and delay 40 others beginning around 5 p.m. on Monday. Delays lasted up to 15 minutes.