LIRR: Ronkonkoma branch restored after train hits vehicle

Three trains were delayed and one canceled after a Ronkonkoma-bound Long Island Rail Road train struck a truck on the tracks at a grade-level crossing west of the Central Islip station Wednesday morning, railroad officials said.

The collision just before 9 a.m. involved the 7:39 a.m. train from Penn Station, authorities said.

LIRR spokeswoman Sarah Armaghan said no one was injured but added that one female train passenger who has high blood pressure said she felt faint and was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

Photos from the scene showed the woman being lifted off the train by emergency responders.

The crash occurred in single-track territory, causing the delays, the railroad said. Service on the branch was suspended between Brentwood and Ronkonkoma at 9:31 a.m., and the service was restored at 9:54 a.m.

Armaghan said the truck, carrying coat hangers and registered to JLB Trucking Co. of South Hackensack, was being driven by Cesar Villegas-Ramirez, 58, of Jersey City, New Jersey.

Villegas-Ramirez, heading north on Carleton Avenue, was stopped at a red light in the right-hand turning lane south of Suffolk Avenue when the pedestrian safety gates lowered as the train approached, Armaghan said. One of the safety gates hit the top of the rear of the truck, she said.

Armaghan said the engineer applied the emergency brake, but the train needed more time to stop and the front engineer’s car grazed the back of the trailer.

“We immediately summoned buses to the location in order to help our customers as expeditiously as possible, but passengers continued on with the train to its last stop at Ronkonkoma, where they disembarked,” Armaghan said.

Armaghan said the train was later taken to the yard for inspection by safety personnel and the truck and its trailer were removed from the scene by Villegas-Ramirez.

Villegas-Ramirez was issued two summonses for obstructing a railroad crossing and one summons for disobeying a sign.

With John Valenti