page_title: Bushwick Branch
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bushwick Branch / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking east from Morgan Avenue at Bushwick Branch of the former Southern Railroad of Long Island now owned by Long Island Rail Road and operated by New York and Atlantic Railway
context_page_description: The Bushwick Branch, also called the Bushwick Lead Track, is a freight railroad branch in New York City. It runs from Bushwick in Brooklyn to Fresh Pond Junction in Maspeth, Queens, where it connects with the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. It is owned by the LIRR but operated under lease by the New York and Atlantic Railway, which took over LIRR freight operations in May 1997.
context_section_description: The Bushwick Branch dates back to the South Side Railroad of Long Island. The South Side had been chartered on March 23, 1860 to build a railroad from Jamaica, Queens, all the way to Islip along the south shore of Long Island. The South Side sought to build a line west of Jamaica to the East River so its passengers could connect to ferries that would take them into Manhattan.
  The South Side originally wanted to build to Long Island City, and tried to buy out the interest of the New York and Flushing Railroad, a small competitor to the FNSRR. However, the LIRR, which was also looking for access to Long Island City, beat out the South Side bid for the New York and Flushing and bought it out instead. Thus, the only recourse for the South Side was to build a line from Jamaica to Fresh Pond, Queens, and then southwest into Bushwick.
  On July 18, 1868, service on the branch began running to Bushwick, and on November 4 to the East River at the South Eighth Street station in Williamsburg, where passengers would take a ferry into a Manhattan. Due to a law in Brooklyn banning steam locomotives, horses pulled trains from the Bushwick Depot to the East River Ferry Terminal in 1868. Steam dummy engines pulled trains from Bushwick depot to East River Ferry Terminal between 1869 and 1873. The two main railroad routes leading to the East River ferry terminals were along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a route owned by the LIRR, and in Long Island City, a route owned by the Flushing and North Side Railroad (FNSRR). To provide a marine freight terminal, in the summer of 1869, a spur was built to the Newtown Creek at Furman's Island, which today is connected by landfill to the rest of Brooklyn.
  The LIRR service to Long Island City via the old New York and Flushing route was not well run and disliked by the public. Most chose the far superior Long Island City service offered by the Flushing and North Side Railroad. The LIRR abandoned its Long Island City service and sold its tracks east of Winfield, Queens, to the FNSRR. The rest of the route west of Winfield to Long Island City remained unused. Seeking an opportunity, the South Side decided to buy up the remaining tracks in 1872, and extended service west from Fresh Pond to Maspeth along Newtown Creek and on to Long Island City, thus gaining a new terminal on the East River (this line today is referred to by the LIRR as the Lower Montauk). However, the South Side only used this new line for freight service, due to the competing passenger service offered by FNSRR. Passenger trains still ran through Bushwick to Williamsburg.
  In 1874, the South Side, along with other railroads on Long Island such as the Central Railroad of Long Island and the FNSRR, came under control of wealthy Brooklyn rubber baron Conrad Poppenhusen. The South Side was reorganized as the Southern Railroad of Long Island. By 1876, Poppenhusen also took control of the LIRR. Seeing the LIRR as the most formidable of his newly acquired railroads, he began to consolidate the competing roads into the LIRR. The LIRR thus gained the FNSRR tracks to Long Island City, making it the primary route for passengers and freight looking to reach Manhattan. The LIRR Atlantic Avenue line was cut back from South Ferry, Brooklyn, to a terminal at Flatbush Avenue, where passengers could transfer to the Fifth Avenue Elevated (and after 1910 the IRT subway) to reach Manhattan, thereby making Flatbush Avenue a secondary terminal for the LIRR. In 1876, most of the lines of the ex-Southern, referred to as the old Southern Road division, were immediately rerouted to Long Island City via the Lower Montauk branch; full integration of the old-Southern Road division with the LIRR Main Line would not be achieved until the Jamaica station improvement project of 1912-13. The ex-Southern line between Bushwick and Williamsburg was abandoned and cut back to a terminal at Bushwick. By the 1880s, Poppenhusen's successor Austin Corbin had successfully consolidated all the railroads. The Bushwick Branch, much like the Atlantic Branch to Flatbush Avenue, acted as a sec
caption: Bushwick Branch
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