WATCH LIVE

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks at Columbia University amid ongoing protests

LIRR works to get back on track after Queens derailment

A Babylon-bound Long Island Rail Road train with about 400 people on board partially derailed in Queens Friday night.

News 12 Staff

Nov 23, 2019, 11:33 AM

Updated 1,614 days ago

Share:

A Babylon-bound Long Island Rail Road train with about 400 people on board partially derailed in Queens Friday night.
Authorities say that two rear cars on the train jumped the tracks at around 9:30 p.m. about a quarter of a mile east of the Jamaica station.
Nobody was hurt.
Passengers were stranded on the derailed train for about two hours, until they were eventually led to an evacuation train that took them to Babylon.
It's unclear what caused the train to go off the tracks.
Authorities say they found a 5-foot section of broken rail at the accident site. But the piece of track had been inspected just hours before the derailment as part of its routine weekly maintenance.
It's currently unclear if the rail was damaged before or after the incident.
Officials say the train was traveling at a relatively low speed of 13 mph when it happened.
"We will go through an exhaustive evaluation, investigation process. We do know that there is a rail that was broken. we don't know whether that was a cause or an effect," says Rod Brooks, with the Long Island Rail Road.
First responders flooded the scene within minutes.
The LIRR says trains are back on schedule and Monday morning's rush should not be affected by the derailment.
 
 
 


More from News 12