Tale of woe from the commuter front

Normally I walk out of the office at 5 PM, but tonight I stayed late to finish up something I was working on.  I left the office about 5:30.

Penn Station seemed unusually crowded when I arrived. It turns out service had been suspended on the Babylon branch for about two hours because a train hit a person who was on the tracks west of Freeport.  Those are elevated tracks, pedestrians are not usually on the tracks. Service had been restored, with minor delays, just before I got to the station.

I don’t normally ride the Babylon branch, so the delays on that branch are not my problem.

Little did I realize ...

Later this evening, a train hit a vehicleat a grade crossing, and the train derailed.  As I write this post, there is no service through Westbury in either direction.  Both the Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma branches of the railroad travel throug Westbury.

I take the Ronkonkoma train.

I am sitting on a train right now, we are stuck in Mineola.  I am hoping the railroad gets some buses, or we are likely to be here for a very long time.