First responders on scene of the accident in Laurel Tuesday afternoon after a train collided with a tractor. (Credit: Grant Parpan)
A single-car Long Island Rail Road train collided with a tractor at a farm in Laurel Tuesday afternoon, according to Riverhead Police Lt. David Lessard.
A man on the tractor was injured and he was transported via medevac to Stony Brook University Medical Center. The train was an engineering inspection vehicle — not a passenger train — known as a Sperry Rail Track Geometry Train, according to Salvatore Arena, a LIRR spokesman.
The train was carrying three LIRR employees, Lt. Lessard said, and there were no injuries to anyone on the train.
The train was headed westbound across the Half Hollow Nursery property when it collided with the tractor being driven by a nursery employee at about 2:30 p.m., the authorities said.
The entire front end of the tractor, which was carting forsythia shrubs across the farm, was ripped off from the impact.
“It does not appear to have happened at an actual grade crossing,” Mr. Arena said. “It appears that the tractor may have been trying to cross over the tracks when it was hit.”
The victim’s clothes were left on the ground at the scene after he was put aboard a Suffolk County Police Department helicopter, which landed just before 3 p.m. His boots were also left in the tracks.
Mr. Arena said the driver of the tractor suffered a leg injury. He said the LIRR leases the train, which is used to diagnose rail irregularities or defects.
The rail cars travel every mile of LIRR track at least twice a year, he said.
MTA police arrived on scene to investigate.
