LIRR Service Restored After Storm

Updated 7 a.m.:

After temporarily suspending service west of Jamaica Thursday evening due to inclement weather, the Long Island Rail Road is reporting good service on all lines, except the Port Washington line.

Railroad officials urged commuters to use the subway to get to Jamaica Station for eastbound LIRR service Thursday night.

Service was suspended between Penn Station and Jamaica at about 6 p.m. Thursday due to inclement weather that affected service on all LIRR branches.

"There are trees down on the tracks at Forest Hills and other places so we simply cannot run trains," Jay Walder, chairman and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), told Patch Thursday night from a meeting at The Garden City Hotel regarding proposed fare hikes on the rails. 

"We also do not have service right now on the J, M, L, or 7 lines in all of part of what appears to have been a tornado that went through the New York area, and we're grappling with that," Walder added.

The LIRR recently experienced trouble after a fire at a switching station near Jamaica shut down a large percentage of service in late-August.

Thousands of power outages were reported throughout Nassau County due to the storm and one person was killed in Queens when a tree fell on a vehicle around 6:50 p.m., according to published reports.

With additional reporting from Peter Verry.