The Wednesday afternoon commute on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) came with a few bumps in the road when a third rail fire caused one of its trains to be stranded in one of four East River tunnels. The incident caused a commuter headache for many travelers, but service is back up for this morning’s commute.

A fire broke out at about 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday in the East River tunnel and caused a Penn Station-bound train from Babylon, holding about 100 people on board, to be stranded for two hours.

The incident caused power to be shut off as the fire was put out.  A diesel locomotive was also called in to pull the stranded train out of the tunnel and into Penn Station.

LIRR service was disrupted until about 5:10 p.m. There were also 14 trains from Penn Station to Long Island that were cancelled as well as other delays. Penn Station’s 8^th Avenue entrance was also closed for an interim as a result of overcrowding.

For the latest update on LIRR service, visit mta.info/lirr.

 [Source: LIRR; WABC.]

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, via Flickr.