(The following article by Amanda Y. Barrett was posted on NYNewsday.com on February 3.)
NEW YORK — Commuters from Queens and Long Island are facing delays this morning as the MTA cleans up a Long Island Rail Road train derailment that occured yesterday at the Jamaica station.
Delays of 15 to 20 minutes are expected throughout rush hour because Track 1 is shut down. Officials said commuters will have to be rerouted to other trains, causing congestion.
“We were working throughout the night and the early morning hours to rerail the cars,” said MTA spokesman Sam Zambuto. “Our concentration now is to operate the train service through Jamaica for the morning rush hours. We will then continue to work on rerailing the cars and once those cars are rerailed, we then have to address the track damage.”
Metropolitan Transit Authority officials said a train derailed at about 4 p.m. Monday, causing delays during the evening rush hour. There were no passengers on the train and no one was injured.
Most trains that run to Manhattan stop at Jamaica, with more than 100,000 people using the station daily during the morning rush hours.
It is not clear what caused the accident.