Commuters trying to get into NYC Friday morning faced a travel nightmare, with no NJ Transit service to Penn Station and extremely limited service to the midtown rail hub on LIRR in the aftermath of Thursday’s subterranean electrical fire.
Only one of the four tracks of the East River Tunnel connecting Long Island to Penn Station was in service Friday morning, as Amtrak work crews scrambled to make repairs and re-open tube Nos. 3 & 4.
The two tracks — which typically carry LIRR service to and from Manhattan and allow NJ Transit trains to park in Queens’ Sunnyside Yard between the morning and evening rush hours — were shut down yesterday after an electrical fire broke out in the tunnel. The fire sent smoke billowing into Penn Station.
FDNY members respond to a fire in the East River Tunnel at Penn Station on Thursday. (Barry Williams / New York Daily News)
The outage comes as Amtrak continues a months-long rebuild of tube No. 2 — meaning only one track of the East River Tunnel was operational Friday morning.
Nearly all LIRR traffic was re-routed to Grand Central Madison beneath Grand Central Terminal Friday morning.
NJ Transit riders were not so lucky. The Garden State rail service continued to divert all trains to Hoboken Terminal on the west side of the Hudson River Friday — meaning Jersey commuters still had to cross the river by bus or by PATH train, both of which were cross-honoring rail tickets.