A Long Island Rail Road train derailed just west of Woodside on Wednesday, snarling service on the Port Washington line for hours, according to the MTA.
The eastbound train was carrying between 400 and 500 people when two of its axles derailed at the Harold Interlocking railroad junction around 12:45 p.m., per the LIRR. No injuries were reported, an FDNY spokesman said.
All of the passengers were taken from the derailed train and transferred to another train at the Woodside station by 1:30 p.m., LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said. The derailed train has since been rerailed and moved off the track.
Partial suspensions and service changes plagued the Port Washington line throughout the evening’s peak commute, and the ripple effects of the derailment were evident throughout nearly the entire LIRR system as trains were canceled or significantly delayed.
Eastbound LIRR trains are experiencing delays averaging 15-20 minutes east of Jamaica due to an earlier derailment. We apologize for the inconvenience.
— LIRR (@LIRR) August 1, 2018
Full service was restored to the Port Washington line around 7:30 p.m., but delays and canceled trains were still a possibility, according to Donovan.
Earlier Wednesday, Fran and Larry Sisselman, a retired couple from Bayside, said they were heading into Manhattan for dinner and a show with friends but feared they wouldn’t make into the city on time.
Their plan was to see, “The Play That Goes Wrong” at the Lyceum Theatre, Larry Sisselman said, but “this is the train that goes wrong.”
Frustrated commuters also took to social media as the evening rush got underway and thousands of Long Islanders scrambled to get home.
A photo posted to the Facebook group Long Island FAILroad showed a number of MTA workers standing around the derailed train.
“Let the jokes begin about how many are standing around doing nothing,” Gregory Koz captioned the photo.
Wednesday’s derailment was the second by an LIRR train in less than two weeks. On July 21, an employees-only train derailed west of Penn Station as it approached the railroad’s West Side Yard.
With Newsday staff
