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| Nassau County Museum/Long Island Studies Institute |
On April 25, 1832, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad Company was formed. It joined Brooklyn Village to East New York and continued east to Jamaica, where it ended. In 1834, the Long Island Railroad Company was formed. Their first locomotive (Ariel) was built in November 1835. The second engine (Post Boy) was finished in May 1836. Each of these seven ton engines cost $7,000. Since they were custom-made, replacing parts was difficult and expensive. Flat cars followed these engines and carried water and wood which was used to fuel the engine.
The Long Island Railroad company's plan was to build tracks from the Jamaica line to the east in order to freight goods to Greenport, the northeastern fork of Long Island. From here, the goods would be taken by ferry across the Long Island Sound to Boston. This was very useful since it connected New York City to Boston. The total trip would take eleven and a half hours. By 1840 the railroad reached Hardscramble (Farmingdale), which became a stop to refuel and pick up water. By 1842, the railroad line reached Deer Park. It served Huntington and Babylon. From here it continued east through the Pine Barrens to Yaphank and was completed in 1844. Located here was Punk's Hole (Saint George's Manor). This spot was 66 miles from Brooklyn, leaving only 29 miles left to Boston. From Punk's Hole it continued through Riverhead to Greenport, where the line ended. This was finished on July 27, 1844. In celebration of it's completion, a three section train was run from Brooklyn to Greenport. All riders went free, completing the trip in three and a half hours (one and a half hours faster than expected). This made the Long Island Railroad the longest in New York. It contained 96 miles of track, 11 locomotives, 22 passenger cars, and 63 freight cars.
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| Nassau County Museum/Long Island Studies Institute |
In December 1848, a land train that connected New York to Boston was built through Connecticut . This hurt the Long Island Railroad, since it lost much of its trade to Boston. Since the train was not well adapted to servicing Long Island businesses, it had to find a way to reach them. To do this, train branches were built to the coasts. In addition to this, dummy trains (small passenger trains) were built to transport local people. Also, the railroad company set up towns along existing tracks to increase the amount of people that could use the railroad. These towns included Islip, Farmingdale, and Hicksville.
The Long Island Railroad was not built to benefit Long Islanders. It was built far inland and failed to show the beauty of Long Island. Also, sparks caused by the engines caused massive forest fires and destroyed lumber, timberlands, barns, houses, and livestock. This upset Long Islanders who retaliated by ripping up sections of the tracks. The Long Island Railroad was forced to send out night watchmen and in some cases, run a hand car in front of the train. By 1860, fires were prevented and trains were not run on Sundays. This eased the tensions between the railroad and many Long Islanders.
In 1900, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company decided that the Long Island Railroad was important to its plans. When the Pennsylvania Railroad Company saw how cheap it would be to buy the Long Island Railroad Company's track, they quickly bought the company.
Today the Long Island Railroad is a commuter train run by a local government agency. Tens of thousands of people from Long Island take the train to New York City each day.
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