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by PETE DONOHUE and BILL HUTCHINSON
Tens of thousands of commuters were thrown into an evening rush-hour hell yesterday when a stubborn underground blaze crippled Penn Station.
The Long Island Rail Road, NJTransit and Amtrak were working through the night to restore normal service by early today.
"We are hopeful about the morning rush," LIRR spokesman Brian Dolan said.
Service on all the lines in and out of Penn Station were slowly moving again last night after being paralyzed for up to six hours.
At least 100,000 LIRR riders where thrown for a loop. About 60,000 NJTransit commuters, and thousands more Amtrak customers were affected by the ordeal.
Meg Doperak, 30, of Syosset, L.I., who is seven months pregnant, said the commute home from her midtown office was "horrible."
She hopped the subway to Jamaica, Queens, only to have to wait for hours on a packed platform for an LIRR train.
"I've never experienced anything like this before," she said.
"It's terrible!" said accountant Bernie Schwartz, 69, of Roslyn, L.I. "This is why I don't come in every day."
The chaos began just after 1 p.m. when a transformer exploded 98 feet below 33rd St. at First Ave., at the mouth of an East River train tunnel, fire officials said.
The blast sent flames and smoke shooting up an air shaft to the street, firefighters said.
"It was some type of electrical outage. When the power came back on, it exploded," said Battalion 6 Chief Carl Jost.
Jost said firefighters couldn't use water to battle the electrical fire, so they carried 25-pound chemical fire extinguishers down an underground spiral staircase to put out the blaze.
Officials immediately stopped all trains, except for the subway, from entering and leaving Penn Station, triggering the stampede for other routes home.
The fire was finally put out at 5:30 p.m., and trains started moving with limited service about an hour later.
With Nicole Bode, Kerry Burke, Greg Gittrich,
Derek Rose and Cristina Silva
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