History of the Long Island Rail Road

The current all-land route (Shore Line) across southern Connecticut was considered impassable at the time due to numerous hills and river valleys.

[5] The LIRR bought the steamboat Cleopatra from Cornelius Vanderbilt, then known for his ferry empire, to cover the Long Island Sound crossing, and began operating to Stonington, Connecticut on August 10.

[26] This line ran from Hunter's Point east to Haberman, and then it went north following what is close to what are now Maurice and Garfield Avenues, and then to Winfield and Flushing along the current Port Washington Branch ROW.

The New York and Flushing continued to own the line west of Winfield, and the Hunter's Point to Haberman portion soon became the South Side Railroad's access to Long Island City.

[68] The Central Railroad of Long Island was incorporated in 1871 by Alexander T. Stewart, an entrepreneur who was developing what is now Garden City, to build from Flushing southeast and east to Bethpage, giving the LIRR direct competition to its Main Line.

[82] In 1878, Austin Corbin organized the Eastern Railroad of Long Island to directly compete with the LIRR, planning a line from New Lots on the New York and Manhattan Beach to Babylon.

The plans for Montauk Extension Railroad from Amagansett to Fort Pond Bay were signed by Frank Sherman Benson and are on file at the County Center in Riverhead.

The BRT's acquisition of all of the Brooklyn Elevated railroads was no longer opposed by the LIRR, and a connection at Sheepshead Bay was built so that trains from the Brighton Line could go to the Manhattan Beach Hotel.

Most of the lines ran until the 1910s, when they were abandoned due to competition from highways and the U.S. Navy Department prohibiting operation through Plum Gut (to Block Island) in 1917; the New London connection continued until 1927.

[114][112] Corbin began planning for direct access to Manhattan by the late 1880s, considering plans to extend the Atlantic Branch under the East River in a tunnel and north to Grand Central Terminal (this was later built as part of the New York City Subway, now the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and IRT Eastern Parkway Line), or to cross the East River on a bridge from Long Island City to near 37th Street and again run to Grand Central.

The Pennsylvania Railroad simultaneously began planning access across the Hudson River to Manhattan, and LIRR president William H. Baldwin, Jr. started negotiating in 1900 to enter the PRR terminal.

That year the PRR paid $6 million for a controlling interest in the LIRR, and soon incorporated the companies to build the New York Tunnel Extension from New Jersey through Manhattan to Long Island City.

[112] The new station and tunnel network provided direct rail service from Long Island to Manhattan, resulting in vast increases in both total passengers and daily commuters.

[82] Later electrification included the Montauk Division from Jamaica out to Babylon in 1925[128] and the Bay Ridge Branch (for New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad freight off the 1916 Hell Gate Bridge) in 1927.

As explained by historian Charles Sachs, Fullerton spent thirty years in the Passenger Department "promoting and advertising events, activities, or plans that would bring public attention to the island's potential for sport, recreation, business, and residential development for both the middle classes and urban elite.

[citation needed] Palsgraf v. LIRR (1928) is a major case in American Tort law which established the legal standard of "proximate cause" based on foreseeability.

The freight sidings, however, were not electrified until 1927 and 1928.The connection to the Oyster Bay Branch was severed in 1928, while the portions of the line between Mineola and Country Life Press and between Country Life Press and West Hempstead were taken out of revenue passenger service in June 1935 due to the costly grade crossing elimination improvements imposed upon the LIRR by the Interstate Commerce Commission, as well as the New York Public Service Commission.

Built at a time when the average person's height and weight was smaller, the seating arrangements in the cars proved to be completely inadequate for mid-century commuters, who were much bigger in stature.

In the 1950s, there was a proposal from City planning authorities to build a new high speed LIRR route down the center median on the newly built Long Island Expressway, however this idea was rejected by master highway builder Robert Moses.

[144] In the summer of 1951, as a cost-cutting measure, all trains operating in and out of Penn Station using electric locomotives were changed to originate and terminate in Jamaica or Long Island City.

The Main Line would have been expanded to three or four tracks to allow for a branch running to Roosevelt Field, where a major transportation center including bus, rail, and helicopter services would be provided.

The two-track branch would have come off of the mainline at Glen Cove Road in Carle Place before running in a new right-of-way to the proposed Roosevelt Field Transportation Center near the Meadowbrook Parkway.

The Pennsylvania Railroad submitted a very high initial estimate, and the result of negotiations was a direct payment of $65 million and a similar amount of relief for unpaid taxes.

[3] Major grade crossing elimination carried on through the 1970s, until the goal of a crossing-free Babylon Branch was finally achieved at Massapequa Park on December 13, 1980, when the station was elevated.

[172] Under Governor George Pataki the LIRR remodeled its lower level concourse of Penn Station between 1990 and 1994, increasing the ceiling height and making it less dreary, as well as opening two new entrance/exit corridors spanning various tracks and lengthening some platforms.

On March 16, 1998, the LIRR closed ten stops with low ridership rather than modify them for access for people with disabilities and to accommodate the new trains consisting of double-decker C3 coaches.

Five stations were on the Lower Montauk Branch (Glendale, Penny Bridge, Haberman, Fresh Pond and Richmond Hill), and five others were in Nassau and Suffolk Counties (Holtsville, Mill Neck, Center Moriches, Quogue, and Southampton Campus).

[187] The Long Island Rail Road celebrated its 175th anniversary on April 22, 2009, with a trip on the TC82 inspection car from Brooklyn to Greenport, the original LIRR main line.

[204] In the late 2010s, the LIRR began work on projects to replace components on the Long Beach Branch and West Side Yard that had been damaged during Hurricane Sandy.

[209] To accommodate an expected increase in Long Island Rail Road ridership once the East Side Access is completed, the LIRR planned to build a third Main Line track from Floral Park to Hicksville.