The LIRR's president said a piece of an Amtrak train left on the tracks inside one of the East River Tunnels was to blame for major service disruptions that caused headaches for tens of thousands of Long Island commuters Tuesday morning.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said the train struck the debris, but was able to continue on to the West Side Yard, where the extent of the damage was being investigated. Nobody was hurt in the incident, according to the MTA.

More than 50 Long Island Rail Road trains were delayed, cancelled or diverted as track inspections were performed inside one of the tunnels linking to Penn Station. Compounding the problem, LIRR officials told customers in a message, was the fact that "track capacity is also severely limited due to the Amtrak Penn S

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