South Side Railroad of Long Island

The South Side Railroad of Long Island was a railroad company in the U.S. state of New York. Chartered in 1860 and first opened in 1867 as a competitor to the Long Island Rail Road, it was reorganized in 1874 as the Southern Railroad of Long Island and leased in 1876 to the LIRR. After a reorganization as the Brooklyn and Montauk Railroad in 1879 (immediately after which it was again leased to the LIRR) it was merged in 1889.

The main line of the South Side Railroad is now the Montauk Branch of the LIRR from Long Island City to Jamaica, the Atlantic Branch from Jamaica to Valley Stream, and the Montauk Branch again from Valley Stream to Patchogue. The Brooklyn and Montauk extended the line to Eastport while leased to the LIRR. The South Side also owned or leased lines that are now the Bushwick Branch and Far Rockaway Branch, as well as the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway from Far Rockaway to Hammels (abandoned beyond Hammels to Rockaway Park) and an abandoned branch from Valley Stream to Hempstead.

The South Side Railroad was incorporated March 23, 1860 and organized April 20, 1860 to build from Brooklyn to Islip, with Willet Charlick, brother of the LIRR's Oliver Charlick, and Charles Fox of Baldwin in control. An April 12, 1867 supplement to its charter authorized an extension to East Hampton. Construction began in June 1866, and it opened for regular service from Jamaica east to Babylon on October 28, 1867. Extensions opened to Islip on September 5, 1868, Sayville on December 11, 1868, and Patchogue on April 10, 1869. It was forced to build its own line west of Jamaica due to a lease made of the Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad (including the Atlantic Avenue Line) by the LIRR in November 1866 and the LIRR's purchase of the New York and Flushing Railroad on July 13, 1867. The line from Jamaica west to Bushwick opened on July 18, 1868, with a streetcar connection to the 8th Street Ferry in Williamsburg, and it opened its own track in Boerum Street, Broadway, and 8th Street to Williamsburg (operated by horses, soon replaced by steam dummies, west of Bushwick) on November 4, 1868. A branch was also built from Maspeth (west of Flushing Avenue) northwest to Furman's Island at the junction of Newtown Creek and Maspeth Creek for freight. However, an extension beyond Patchogue was not built, because the LIRR built the Sag Harbor Branch in 1869 and 1870 to cut off the competition. Prior to the acquisition by the LIRR, there was a proposal by the SSRRLI to extend the main line southeast towards Bellport, and then northeast to Brookhaven and Southaven. Rather than the Brookhaven station that existed on the LIRR between 1884 and 1958, the planned station in Brookhaven was to be named "Fireplace" after Fireplace Neck.

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