LIRR riders can rest easy — for now — as the threat of a late-week strike by five unions representing half the railroad’s workers has been averted.

Fears of a strike on the nation’s busiest commuter railroad have grown as a federally mandated “cooling off period” was set to expire Thursday.

But leadership of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen, the International Association of Machinists, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the Transportation Communications Union announced Monday that they have asked President Trump to put together a Presidential Emergency Board to continue negotiations through January.

Should those negotiations fail, leadership said, the five unions have voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike for next

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