(The Associated Press circulated the following article on August 16.)
NEW YORK — Service on the Long Island Rail Road returned to normal yesterday after hundreds of riders were stranded on their trains for hours Monday by a freak accident.
Seven Long Island Rail Road trains were stalled in the Monday evening incident when a loose tarp blown from a water tower knocked power lines onto the tracks.
Two trains, carrying about 600 passengers, were pulled by rescue engines to Baldwin because power was shut off in the affected area as a safety precaution. One train had 450 passengers; the other had 150.
The five trains farthest from the downed lines moved under their own power to nearby stations so passengers could disembark. The LIRR arranged for buses for those passengers.
The incident happened around 6:30 p.m. between Freeport and Baldwin on the Babylon branch, LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan said.
The branch, one of 11 in the LIRR system, was shut down in both directions between Babylon and New York.
The two towed trains got to Baldwin around 10:30 p.m. Monday. There were congestion delays of up to an hour on other branches before service returned to normal at around 3a.m. yesterday.
The tarpaulin fell from a Freeport town water tower where construction work was being done, the Long Island Power authority said. No injuries were reported.
At Penn Station on Monday, hundreds of LIRR riders complained about the delays and a lack of information about when they would be able to get home.
The Long Island Rail Road, a division of the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority, carries an average of 282,400 customers each weekday on 728 trains, according to the MTA’s Web site, which calls it North America’s busiest commuter railroad.
The LIRR system comprises more than 700 miles of tracks between Montauk on the tip of Long Island and Penn Station in midtown Manhattan, about 120 miles away.