Scenes at Penn Station without many commuters

"Attention passengers," a conductor was heard saying on an E train right before it pulled into Penn Station before 6 a.m.

"There's no Long Island Rail Road service at 34th Street-Penn Station at this time."

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

At a surreally quiet Penn Station, digital screens displayed train times with "No Passengers" in the destination blocks. Another set of screens reported the LIRR strike.

A few dozen people walked through the vast station after 6 a.m., a tiny fraction of the number who would be there on an ordinary weekday.

The LIRR Ticketing & Customer Service booth was closed and had signs referencing the strike.

The bathrooms were open.

A block west on Eighth Avenue, Mohammad Hazai and Syed Ali were chatting outside their breakfast cart in front of Madison Square Garden.

"We never have time to chitchat like this," Hazai said.

Hazai has been working with his relative for over a decade, he said. Ali has worked the cart for more than 25 years, though never during a LIRR strike. The last one was 30 years ago.

"He asked me in the morning if it was a holiday, I said, ‘No,’ " Hazai said with a laugh.

Instead, the strike has ground business to a near halt. Typically, their supply of muffins, croissants, doughnuts, bagels and rolls are 50% depleted by this time. On Monday, they said, just 5% had been purchased.

When a customer came by asking for an egg sandwich, they cut the chitchat and got to work. Then, the lull returned before the occasional customer ordered their breakfast.