Talk:Central Railroad of Long Island

Sequence acc to Seyfried
per The Long Island Rail Road: A Comprehensive History, Part Two: The Flushing, North Shore & Central Railroad


 * 1869 - Stewart buys 7,170 acres of Town of Hempstead (apparently also including some in Town of Oyster Bay) for $55 per acre as part of his plan to build planned community [Garden City] for people in "moderate circumstances" and of "refined and cultivated tastes" with homes planned to range in value from $5,000 to $15,000 on plots of at least an acre. His plans included a luxurious express railway for commuters to Manhattan
 * 1870- first of the new houses went up in Garden City
 * 1870-APR - Stewart meets with Popenhusen re connecting Stewart railway to Flushing & NorthSide RR
 * 1870-DEC-03 - contract awarded for railroad between Farmingdale and New Hyde Park Road,
 * 1870-DEC-31 - Stewart & Poppenhusen agree Stewart line will connect with Flushing & NorthSide to Flushing
 * 1871-SEP-mid - (Old) Bethpage Brickworks in operation
 * 1871-1872 (winter)
 * Stewart and Conrad Poppenhusen decided to enlarge the CRRLI beyond its original function of serving the Stewart purchase only; it was decided to extend southeast from Farmingdale to Babylon and the then fashionable watering place of Fire Island. A subsidiary, the Central Extension Railroad Company, was formally organized in 1871 to build the proposed road. There was a great deal of guessing on the part of the speculators as to the exact route of the line of road. A few miles to the southeast lay the booming village of Breslau, then being intensively advertised and developed.


 * 1872-JUN-24 - a construction train made the first through trip from Flushing to Garden City, testing the rails and bridges.
 * 1872-JUL-?? - By July the brickworks had advanced so far as to deliver bricks to Stewart's main line in the vicinity of Jerusalem [Plainedge/Central Park]. These were hauled by [horse] team from the works, loaded onto freight cars, and carted to Garden City for the buildings going up on the plains there.
 * 1872-JUL-13 - the crossing of the L.I.R.R. was made at Garden City without unpleasant incident, and the construction train was able to make the maiden trip the next day over the Central as far as Farmingdale [i.e. Bethpage Junction]
 * 1872-OCT-?? - work on the brick depot [(Old) Bethpage] began.
 * 1872-NOV-?? - Over the summer Mr. Wellwood of the Breslau project and Mr. Stewart had discussed three different routes to Babylon and Fire Island, and not until November were surveyors set to marking out the finally determined route.
 * 1873-JAN-?? - Nine trains a day ran a through service between Hempstead and Hunter's Point.
 * 1873-APR-06 - the installation of the frogs for crossing the Long Island R.R. about half a mile west of Farmingdale was successfully performed, after which one train of cars went over the road.
 * 1873-May-26 - Main line opened to Bethpage Junction
 * 1873-Jun-?? - Bethpage Branch completed & in operation
 * 1873-Jul-26 - track layers reached the South Side R.R., ready to install the crossing frogs.
 * 1873-AUG-01 - the first train passed over the new track between 9 and 10 o'clock. In the afternoon service was initiated through from Hunter's Point to the Merrick Road with seven trains each way daily. A temporary depot was put into use at the southeast corner of the Merrick Road and East Neck Road...At this point the traveller boarded a "stage" for downtown Babylon, or for the steamer to Fire Island.
 * 1873-OCT-18 - the completed [Babylon] depot was opened to traffic.
 * The depot site, located on the west side of Fire Island Avenue and extending through to Carll Avenue, occupied the present site of the houses numbered 158 and 164. The east face of the depot building looked out on the Watson house and grounds, a huge summer boarding house that had opened the previous season in May 1872. Both the depot and the right-of-way occupied a strip varying from sixty-six to 100 feet in width and running back 1,000 feet, all of which had been bought from Elbert Carll for $4,250. The station building itself was a wooden frame structure, 38 x 60, "thrown entirely over the tracks, with convenient waiting rooms, ticket and telegraph offices and a baggage room on the north side." Inside were comfortable benches trimmed in black walnut and ash. On the Fire Island and Carll Avenues fronts the legend "Babylon & Fire Island" was prominently emblazoned in blue and gold letters. High overhead a large red flag bearing the letters "Central R.R." waved in the breeze. Alongside the station stood a small engine house.


 * 1874-SEP-25
 * Having bought in the South Side RR of LI road for $200,000, it formally became a Poppenhusen subsidiary and was reorganized as The Southern Railroad Co. of Long Island. Within days the telegraph wires of the North Side and Southern systems were connected and two track connections were made: one in Long Island City through Van Alst Avenue, and the more important one at a point west of Babylon, now called Belmont Junction.


 * 1874-NOV-01
 * the Southern R.R. tracks from Babylon east to Patchogue were detached from the control of the Southern R.R. and added to the Central's main line, and all Central trains were henceforth routed from Long Island City to Patchogue. This meant that the former Babylon station of the Central R.R. on Fire Island Avenue ceased to be a terminus only eleven months after its completion. It is probable that the station was not immediately abandoned; there is some reason to believe that the Central R.R. continued to operate at least some service into this depot in the summer of 1875 for the Fire Island traffic and to service the Watson House across the street. In any case, the change effectively ended all schemes of moving the Central depot down to the Steamboat Dock, seriously considered only four months before. To bring the railroad between Babylon and Patchogue up to Central R.R. standards, much of the line was rebuilt with fresh ballasting and new rails.


 * 1876-FEB-01
 * 35,000 shares of LIRR stock were sold to the Poppenhusen (CRRLI) family for $37.50 per share, or $1,175,000. The capital stock of the Long Island R.R. was then 66,000 shares. The purchase gave the Poppenhusens a controlling interest in the management while the Havemeyers profited....The new united LIRR did not wipe out the corporate existence of the component roads. The Poppenhusen blueprint called for the leasing of the newer roads to the older and financially stronger LIRR....The Long Island R.R., in accepting the leases of the other two roads, did not accept the liabilities of these roads, the mortgages on them remaining as before, but it would have the right of removing shops and depots so as to have central buildings for railroad purposes, and also the right to use the rolling stock of each company on any of the tracks.


 * 1876-APR-10 - Stewart dies


 * 1877-SEP/OCT
 * Conrad he went into voluntary bankruptcy, and threw the whole matter into the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy courts. It was perhaps the CRRLI that really dragged down the whole system. The CRRLI touched only three villages of importance, Flushing, Hempstead and Babylon, and all three were already served by rival roads. Even Garden City, the village for which the road had been designed and built, contributed nothing -- almost no year-round inhabitants. The CRRLI had been built to the finest standards, using the best Prussian steel, and the rolling stock was possibly the best in the country, yet the territory served was a revenue vacuum.


 * 1877-OCT - the courts, at the request of the creditors, placed the whole railroad system in receivership;


 * 1878-1879 - The CRRLI between Garden City and Babylon was abandoned completely, since it ran through empty territory, but not torn up. The LIRR line to Hunter's Point was reduced to freight operation only for the winter


 * 1881-01-01 - Austin Corbin bought possession of the LIRR system, supplanting Thomas R. Sharpe, the receiver


 * 1882-APR - Austin Corbin induced to buyout the derelict North Side RRoad


 * 1893-FEB - The CRRLI inside Garden City was finally sold outright by the Stewart heirs to the LIRR, terminating the former annual leasing arrangement.


 * 1915-1933 - "Central Extension" runs trolley service from Garden City to Salisbury (Merrick Ave)


 * 1925
 * Bethpage Junction reconfigured - disused Central Extension between Farmingdale and Babylon was extensively overhauled for the use of through trains to Babylon and points east, this change being necessitated by the electrification of the Montauk Division. At the same time, however, this rehabilitated stretch was linked up to the Main Line at Farmingdale (Bethpage Junction) and the plains section cut back to Stewart Avenue, Plainedge (CENTRAL PARK station) Once this track connection was broken, the remainder of the Central Extension on the plains was doomed.


 * 1930s-1953 - shuttle passenger service on "Central Extension" with M. U. electric trains


 * 1942-1945 - easternmost "Central Extension" tracks "stolen" & sold for scrap


 * 1946 - tracks re-laid for Levittown construction - tracks crossed the Wantagh State Pkwy at grade and trains were flagged across - removed by Levitt


 * 1950's - Central Extension removed back to Meadowbrook Pkwy & Roosevelt Raceway


 * 1961 - final abandonment of passenger service on the Central Extension, when the L.I.R.R. withdrew the Roosevelt Raceway Specials because of the refusal of the Raceway officials to contribute to the cost of the service.

-

2010 April/May discussions

 * I fixed the Wikisource link for you. Would you mind if I moved the tag from Central Branch (Long Island Rail Road) here too? DanTD (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I gather you mean to add the wikisource tag to that article too - cannot see why not--JimWae (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I was originally thinking of a transfer, but a duplicate of the tag is okay too. I've got it hidden in the reference chapter right now. DanTD (talk) 00:03, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Problems:
 * Belmont Junction was not original terminus of the CRRLI. CRRLI built a very elaborate station on Fire Island Ave, which it abandoned 11 months later when the "merger" happened--JimWae (talk) 04:22, 29 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I saw a timetable (online) yesterday indicating Breslau WAS a separate stop between [South] Farmingdale & Belmont Junction, and not the same as present Lindenhurst stop. --JimWae (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * also it seems there were 2 stations (diff places) name Breslau. Below is copied from alphabetical list--JimWae (talk) 20:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * BRESLAU - CRR OF LI - CENTRAL RAILROAD OF L.I. - IN SVC: JUNE OR JULY/1873,  EAST OF WELLWOOD AVE.  LAST LISTED ON TIMETABLE OF 3/1875.


 * According to this(South Side Railroad (Unofficial LIRR History Website)) as well as others, Lindenhust Station was originally known as Wellwood Station, then changed to Breslau in 1870, and then Lindenhurst in 1891. It wouldn't be the first time railroads have had their own stations with the same names. Springfield, Garden City, and Farmingdale are prime examples, of course. DanTD (talk) 20:44, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This NY Times article from 1873-AUG-01 announces opening of Babylon Extension - gives Breslau between [South] Farmingdale & Babylon. This article is about the CRRLI line, so names used by CRRLI should be primary names, not names used by LIRR. Hamlet/village name change was not until 1891. --JimWae (talk) 23:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If CRRLI, SSRRLI, and LIRR had stations with the same names, they just did. DanTD (talk) 04:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

1878-1879: the CRRLI between Garden City and Babylon was abandoned completely, since it ran through empty territory, but not torn up. Names after 1881 Corbin purchase cannot be primary for the CRRLI article. Also distances from Penn Station and "current connections" are not relevant data for the table. --JimWae (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Post-1881 station names are/were still used along what used to be the CRRLI. So even though they weren't all CRRLI stations, they still should be recognized. DanTD (talk) 04:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any source that the LIRR used the Breslau / North Lindenhurst location for a stop? LIRR did not use Babylon Extension until after 1925, it seems--JimWae (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just using the same sources here, some of which you're relying on as well. DanTD (talk) 04:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeh, I do not recall any source for use of "North Lindenhurst" name for station - maybe it will turn up--JimWae (talk) 05:16, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

1876 - who acquired whom?
On 1876 FEB 01, 35,000 shares of LIRR stock were sold to the Poppenhusen (CRRLI) family for $37.50 per share, or $1,175,000. The capital stock of the Long Island R.R. was then 66,000 shares. The purchase gave the Poppenhusens a controlling interest (53%) in the management while the Havemeyers profited.... The new united LIRR did not wipe out the corporate existence of the component roads. The Poppenhusen blueprint called for the leasing of the newer roads to the older and financially stronger LIRR.... The LIRR, in accepting the leases of the other two roads, did not accept the liabilities of these roads, the mortgages on them remaining as before, but it would have the right of removing shops and depots so as to have central buildings for railroad purposes, and also the right to use the rolling stock of each company on any of the tracks.

Poppenhusen was a financial backer of the Flushing & NorthSide R.R & of CRRLI. It appears that control of the LIRR passed to the CRRLI, thus the lede should NOT say:
 * [The CRRLI]... was finally acquired by the Long Island Rail Road in 1876, and divided into separate branches.

Central Railroad Extension Company
Any way we can integrate the Central Railroad Extension Company into the article? DanTD (talk) 05:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Darrynane station?
I just spotted this on Arrt's Arrchives (http://arrts-arrchives.com/images2/7575fnscrrtt.jpg) it shows a station named "Darrynane" between (South) Farmingdale station and Belmont Junction. Any info on this one? Maybe an old name for "North Lindenhurst/Breslau?" -User:DanTD (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080929140225/http://lirr42.mta.info/stationinfo.asp?station=035 to http://lirr42.mta.info/stationinfo.asp?station=035
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Map
Thanks for adding the map-it should continue to Babylon. Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 23:43, 18 September 2022 (UTC)