Incident location, Long Island
What Happened
A 65-year-old Amityville man was fatally struck by a Long Island Rail Road train east of the Amityville station at 5:31 a.m. on Thursday, May 22, 2025, according to Newsday. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. MTA police confirmed no criminality was suspected in connection with his death.
The train involved was a westbound LIRR service en route to Grand Central Madison, according to Newsday. At the time of impact, approximately 600 passengers were aboard the train — a significant number for an early-morning departure along one of the LIRR’s busiest corridors. Following the fatal strike, the train was stopped only partially at the Amityville station in order to offload those passengers. No injuries were reported among passengers or crew members.
MTA police stated that the victim was not authorized to be on the tracks at the time of the incident. Authorities identified him as an Amityville resident but have not publicly released his name. Emergency personnel responded to the scene at the LIRR’s Amityville station, where the man was pronounced dead. The investigation remained active in the hours following the incident, though police noted there was no suspicion of criminal activity.
The LIRR moved quickly to address the needs of stranded commuters. Passengers who were offloaded from the affected westbound train were accommodated by another train servicing the Amityville station, the railroad said. However, the ripple effects of the incident were significant: multiple trains along the Babylon Branch were affected, and according to the MTA’s own website, delays persisted well into the heart of the morning rush hour. Normal service on the Babylon Branch was fully restored before 11 a.m., the railroad confirmed — meaning the disruption spanned roughly five and a half hours from the time of the initial strike.
The scale of the disruption underscores how a single incident along a busy commuter rail branch can cascade across an entire schedule. The Babylon Branch is one of the LIRR’s most heavily traveled lines, serving communities across the South Shore of Long Island from Babylon west toward Penn Station and Grand Central Madison. A stoppage — even a partial one — at a station like Amityville, situated between Copiague and Lindenhurst, creates downstream delays that accumulate quickly during peak travel windows. As Newsday reported, those delays extended through the entirety of the Thursday morning rush.
Location & Road Context
The fatal incident took place east of the Amityville station along the LIRR’s Babylon Branch, one of the railroad’s primary South Shore corridors connecting communities between Babylon and Jamaica. Amityville is a hamlet in the Town of Babylon in Suffolk County, situated along the NY 27A (Merrick Road) corridor — a stretch familiar to Long Island Traffic readers for its mix of pedestrian activity, bus traffic, and grade-level rail crossings. The Amityville LIRR station sits in the heart of the community, and the tracks east of the station pass through a densely developed residential and commercial area.
For commuters navigating South Shore roads during the disruption, parallel routes including NY 27A and NY 110 would have seen increased congestion as affected rail passengers sought alternatives. The Babylon Branch serves tens of thousands of daily riders, making any service suspension during peak hours a significant regional transportation event.
Broader Impact
Amityville has seen a troubling pattern of fatal incidents involving pedestrians and transit in recent months. In February 2026, two pedestrians were struck — one fatally — by multiple vehicles including a Suffolk County Transit bus in Amityville, a tragedy that drew community attention to the vulnerability of those on foot near transit infrastructure in the area. Thursday’s LIRR fatality adds to that broader concern about unauthorized access to rail corridors and the ongoing need for public awareness around track safety along the South Shore. The MTA has consistently emphasized that trespassing on railroad tracks is both illegal and extremely dangerous, particularly along high-frequency lines like the Babylon Branch where trains operate at speed through residential communities in the early morning hours.