Long Island Rail Road riders left stranded by a strike on the country’s busiest commuter railroad found themselves back on trains early Monday — just not the ones they typically ride in and out of New York City.

As the walkout that began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday moved into its first weekday, the MTA turned to shuttle buses to transport thousands of early-rising passengers between suburban rail hubs and a pair of Queens subway stations.

“I’m hoping it ends today,” Jatinder Kaur, 50, told THE CITY as she waited for a Manhattan-bound A train at the Howard Beach-JFK Airport stop. “I can’t travel five hours to go to the city every day, it’s just too much.”

Kaur, who works at a pharmacy in Midtown, said she usually catches a 5:11 a.m. train from Wantagh to be at work by 6.

On Monday, she was out the door by 4:30 a.m. to catch a shuttle bus from the LIRR’s Hicksville station and found herself on a subway platform at Howard Beach a few minutes after 7 a.m.

“I’d rather have been in Penn Station,” she said.

Chelsea Baltazar, a teacher, commuted to her job on the Upper West Side after catching a shuttle bus from Hicksville to the Howard Beach-JFK stop on the A line, May 18, 2026. Credit: Jose Martinez/THE CITY

The strike’s first weekday commute came as federal mediators ordered representatives from the MTA and five striking unions back into negotiations on Sunday after talks broke down once the walkout began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The latest round of talks kicked off at 7:30 a.m. Monday at MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

The two sides have been locked in a months-long standoff over worker pay after averting a strike last September, when the unions asked President Donald Trump to establish a review board.

The MTA activated the weekday-only shuttle service for inbound commuters from 4:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., running buses between six LIRR stops and the F line’s Queens terminal at Jamaica-179 Street as well as the Howard Beach station.

Officials had also encouraged motorists to take the No. 7 line from Mets-Willets Point, where Citi Field parking lots were opened for $6.

At the stop in Jamaica, Chetna Juneja said she was dreading the prospect of getting home after midnight from graduate school classes in Brooklyn, adding that she usually is home by 9:15 p.m. after catching an LIRR train at Atlantic Terminal.

“It’s going to be really crazy, and I work again in the morning,” Juneja said.

Riders expressed frustration over the two sides being unable to find common ground.

“I know the unions are in one place and the MTA is in another,” said Billy Miecuna, who was commuting to Chelsea from Mineola. “They’ve got to get to a place where they can agree, regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong.”

Close to 300,000 LIRR commuters had their daily routines disrupted by the railroad’s first strike in more than 30 years, with Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA officials urging affected riders to work from home if possible. 

For those unable to work remotely, the subway became the go-to mode of mass transit.

“I usually leave like at 6:30 so I was out a whole hour earlier,” said Chelsea Baltazar, who was traveling from Wantagh to her teaching job on the Upper West Side. “But the closest station didn’t have the shuttle bus, so I went to Mineola with my dad.”

MTA workers in orange safety vests guided suburban riders from the shuttle buses onto Manhattan-bound subway platforms. 

“Good morning, good morning, Manhattan-bound A trains right here,” one station worker said to riders transferring from the buses.

A commuter holds an LIRR strike information flyer after boarding an A train at Howard Beach, May 18, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

But the trip to work wasn’t as straightforward for reverse commuter LaDona Whitney, who ordinarily catches a Long Island-bound train from the Nostrand Avenue station in Brooklyn. She said she gave herself “an hour and a couple of minutes” for a commute that usually takes her 30 minutes.

“This right here is all new to me right now,” Whitney, a medical assistant in Mineola, said. “I woke up at 5 just to beat the morning rush, when normally I would be up at 6.”

Whitney said the timing of the strike is especially frustrating because she will be on vacation next week.

“Couldn’t they have waited a week?” she said with a laugh.

Additional reporting by Lilly Sabella.

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