Long Island Rail Road service was temporarily suspended on Tuesday, May 29, after a man was struck and killed by a train just west of the Forest Hills train station. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) service in Forest Hills was shut down during rush hour on May 29, after a person was struck by an oncoming train west of the train station.
According to Sam Zambuto, an LIRR spokesman, a 50-year-old man was hit and killed by the train at approximately 4:20 Tuesday evening.
Although the victim has yet to be identified, Zambuto said that MTA police are investigating the incident as a possible suicide.
The train that struck the man left the Ronkonkoma station at 3:11 p.m. and was
scheduled to arrive at Penn Station at 4:34 p.m.
According to Zambuto, westbound train service going from Jamaica to Penn Station was suspended soon after the incident occurred and was not restored until about 7 p.m. that evening.
Zambuto said trains going eastbound from Penn Station were also affected. Those trains were still running but they were skipping the three local stops in Queens, which are Woodside, Forest Hills and Kew Gardens. He added that those trains began to stop at those three stations around the same time as the westbound
service was restored.
LIRR riders that were on the train that hit the man were transferred to another train that stopped right next to it. The train was not at a platform when the incident happened, Zambuto said.
During the time that LIRR service was suspended, people who wanted to get to and
from Penn Station could use their LIRR tickets to ride the subway on the E train, which services that area.
Because of the incident, Zambuto said that 18 eastbound trains were canceled in total and, once LIRR service was restored in both directions, the trains were operating at 20 to 30 minute delays coming in and out of Penn Station.
By Luis Gronda
