Tower Blaze KO’s LIRR Service

By Joseph Orovic

Long Island Rail Road customers were dealt a major headache midday on Monday, as a fire crippled nearly the entire system.

The Hall switching station, where a fire caused the shutdown of most of the Long Island Rail Road.

The blaze broke out at the Hall Tower, which houses the rail switching system needed to appropriately guide trains onto their respective routes. The 97-year-old structure caught fire just before 11 a.m., affecting straphangers’ commutes more than a day after it originally started.

Authorities were still determining the cause of the fire Tuesday, though early theories blame the previous day’s heavy rains, which could have caused a short circuit due to flooded cables, according to LIRR spokesman Mike Charles.

The scene at Jamaica Station, which rests just a few hundred feet from the site of the fire, was a mix of resignation and disappointment. Dozens of potential LIRR passengers lined the station’s waiting area, puffing cigarettes, opening beers and voicing their discontent.

“If it’s not traffic, it’s something else,” said Linda Higgins, a nurse who runs a dialysis center in St. Albans. She, like many of her fellow commuters, did not learn of the LIRR’s curtailed service until she actually showed up at Jamaica station.

For Jimena Vargas, the wait with her 13-year-old brother grew more tedious by the second. She had waited for more than an hour, and there was no sign of a train arriving.

Commuters wait for information about the lengthy delays on Monday. Photos by Joseph Orovic

“I just wish they’d tell us what was going on,” she said. “This is really the only option we have. We can’t take a cab out to Long Island.”

But some, unlike Vargas, footed the extra cost and did pay hefty cab fares to head east. A handful could be seen throughout the span of an hour, dropping off and picking up passengers at the station.

As of press time, the LIRR was able to restore service to about 65 percent of its usual rate, according to Charles, with a limited amount of transfers available at Jamaica because of the failed switch. There was no set timetable for a full recovery of service Charles said, adding the LIRR was considering bus alternatives to temporarily replace the lost service.

Reach Reporter Joseph Orovic at jorovic@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 127.