Sunday, February 22, 2026

Blizzard to bring LIRR service to complete standstill

The LIRR just announced a couple hours ago that due to the ongoing blizzard, one that will probably end up being pretty historic for Long Island, that they will completely suspend LIRR service by 1am tomorrow morning, when things are projected to reach a point where it is unsafe to continue running service into the overnight, which is forecasted to be the heaviest part of the storm.

I personally think that 1am is a bit late, and that they are taking a chance by running some trains that late, I'd rather see the LIRR fully finish curtailing operations slightly earlier, as the later we go, the risk that a train could get stuck increases, however, we will have to see how things play out. 

They will gradually suspend service with each branch having one last train to run, allowing for the LIRR to stash away equipment in strategic places allowing for quicker cleanup pending the end of the storm

Here are the final trains to run on each branch:

Babylon
  • The 11:44pm from Babylon to Penn Station
  • the 11:43pm from Penn Station to Babylon
Long Beach
  • The 12:12am from Long Beach to Penn Station
  • The 11:58pm from Penn Station to Long Beach
Far Rockaway
  • The 11:07pm from Far Rockaway to Grand Central
  • The 11:20pm from Grand Central to Far Rockaway
Hempstead
  • Hempstead Branch trains weren't running due to signal upgrades.
Port Jefferson
  • The 9:39pm from Port Jefferson to Huntington, with connection available to New York.
  • The 11:27pm from Port Jefferson to Huntington, without any New York connection.
  • The 11:52pm from Huntington to Penn Station
  • The 11:46pm from Penn Station to Huntington, with connection available to Port Jefferson
Port Washington
  • The 11:26pm from Port Washington to Penn Station
  • The 11:28pm from Penn Station to Port Washington
Ronkonkoma
  • The 11:07pm from Ronkonkoma to Penn Station
  • The 11:17pm from Penn Station to Ronkonkoma
West Hempstead
  • The 11:02pm from West Hempstead to Grand Central
  • The 10:57pm from Grand Central to West Hempstead
Greenport
  • The 2:21pm from Ronkonkoma to Greenport
  • The 4:37pm from Greenport to Ronkonkoma
Metro-North has said they will run a weekend schedule for the entirety of Monday. While Long Island is actually supposed to receive the worst of the snow, I have my doubts on whether or not Metro-North will be able to hold their promise. The NYC subway is currently running both underground and above ground, running all local, however, with the worst of the storm coming overnight, I doubt they will continue providing above ground service throughout the night.

As far as service restoration goes, depending on how much Long Island actually ends up getting, and when it actually stops (this determines how much time they have to clean up), my best guess is that they'll be able to get limited service up and going Tuesday morning, primarily on the busier branches (Babylon, Ronkonkoma, Port Washington, and Port Jefferson) for the Tuesday morning commute, however, this would likely come with delays and cancellations, and I doubt we will see service back up and running on the East End until Tuesday evening at the earliest.

I will be closely following the news and I will update you guys later or tomorrow morning if they give any updates on what's going on. As for now we will just have to wait for more information.

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