Alexander Turney Stewart was a wealthy Irish-born entrepreneur, who had made a fortune in retail and real estate.

In the spring of 1869, once Stewart heard of the proposed sale of land in the Town of Hempstead, formed the idea which became the Central Railroad of Long Island.

In January 1870, Stewart sent a surveyor to lay out three possible options for his proposed railroad west of New Hyde Park Road to Farmingdale Village.

This decision was probably a result of a meeting with Conrad Poppenhusen, who offered to sell Stewart the old New York & Flushing route between Main Street and Woodside.

The contract gave every person who moved to Garden City or Hempstead a free ticket over the road for one year.

Also, the operation of the CRR would be assumed by the Flushing & North Side management, and at least fifteen trains would be run each way every day.

In August 1871, a switch was built connecting the LIRR and the Flushing & North Side at Winfield to allow rails and other materials to be transported to the Central Railroad more quickly.

Along the line, two iron bridges were built over Ireland Mill Creek, which drained Kissena Lake, as well as twenty culverts.

[1] During the winter of 1871–1872, Stewart and Poppenhusen decided to extend the CRRLI southeast from Farmingdale to Babylon, and then to Fire Island.

On March 22, 1872, the extensive cut at Rocky Hill was completed, and bridges were ready to be installed throughout Queens.

In June, the stations at Hinsdale and Creedmoor were completed, and in October the engine house at Hempstead was finished.

This connection afforded the Central access to Long Island City through the LIRR's major hub, Jamaica station.

This right of way between Flushing and the National Rifle Range, later to become Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital, was abandoned in 1879; the track was removed sometime before December 1913.

In 1912, William Kissam Vanderbilt II used the Central Rail Road bridge over Bell Boulevard as part of the Long Island Motor Parkway right of way.

New York State Parks Department later built the current bridge over Bell Boulevard just north of the original site when they acquired the land for a bicycle path in 1938.

The original Rail Road right of way leading to the bridge can still be seen when headed east immediately prior to the current crossing.

[18] This meant that all Hempstead Branch trains now left the main line at Queens Village, and at some point[when?]

The CRRLI mainline continued past Garden City through the vast open Hempstead Plains in central Nassau County at the location of the current day Nassau Coliseum, and on through what is today Eisenhower Park until Bethpage Junction.

The only areas of this CRRLI line that were very populated were around Hempstead and Babylon, and low ridership led to financial difficulties and a reduction in service.

A bright spot for this Stewart line came in 1918 when Mitchel Field, an Air Force base, opened up in the Hempstead Plains.

In 1939 the Central Extension between Garden City and the end of line in Bethpage was abandoned for regular passenger service.

In 1946, in order to bring building materials to the huge new Levittown development, the rails were relaid eastward just east of the Wantagh Parkway, where a temporary freight terminal was set up.

The opening of the Meadowbrook Parkway and the laying out of Salisbury Park by the county in the late 1950s further cut the track back to the present Roosevelt Raceway terminus.

A large freight yard remained in Garden City servicing some local industries such as A&P, the General Bronze Corporation, and Newsday.

However, lack of resources (at the time the bankrupt LIRR was in the process of being bought by the MTA from the Pennsylvania Railroad), as well as community opposition from residents in Garden City shelved those plans.

Today the line is primarily used for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus train, which uses the secondary and the Garden City yard to store its trains when the circus makes its yearly visit to Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The Meadow Brook Club Road Bridge still nestles inside an entrance ramp of the parkway.

The remaining segment of the Central Branch is now owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road.

This allows several Montauk Branch trains that begin or end east of Babylon to use the Main Line from Bethpage to Jamaica.