Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad

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The Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad was a horse car company in the U.S. state of New York, with a main line from downtown Brooklyn east to Jamaica along Atlantic Avenue. The company was formed in 1860 by the merger of the Brooklyn Central Railroad with the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad.

[edit] History

The Brooklyn Central Railroad was incorporated August 31, 1859 to take over the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad, then operated by the Long Island Rail Road as a steam-powered line, for a horse car service once the LIRR completed their new line to Long Island City. This happened soon after the LIRR was authorized to abandon service through the Cobble Hill Tunnel to South Ferry in Brooklyn in exchange for ending steam power in the Brooklyn city limits.[1] The city authorized them on June 6 to lay tracks on Atlantic Avenue west of Boerum Place (where the Brooklyn and Jamaica passed through the Cobble Hill Tunnel); east of there, they would use the Brooklyn and Jamaica trackage. They were also granted on November 28, 1859 the right to build along Furman Street from Atlantic Avenue north to Old Fulton Street, connecting the South Ferry (Atlantic Avenue) to the Wall Street Ferry (Montague Street) and Fulton Ferry (Old Fulton Street). The Brooklyn Central Railroad and Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad merged on August 8, 1860[2] to form the Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad. The company also opened a line from Atlantic Avenue south on Flatbush Avenue and Fifth Avenue to 37th Street at Greenwood, with a branch east along Third Street to the city line.[3] The LIRR ended steam service on Atlantic Avenue on September 30, 1861.[4]

The Atlantic Avenue line became the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railway in 1866 and the Atlantic Avenue Railroad in 1872.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ PRR Chronology, 1859PDF (60.9 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  2. ^ PRR Chronology, 1860PDF (91.7 KiB), May 2004 Edition
  3. ^ Henry Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn, Volume 3: Part II, Rail Roads and Plank Roads, 1867
  4. ^ PRR Chronology, 1861PDF (176 KiB), May 2004 Edition
  5. ^ Felix Reifschneider, History of the Long Island Railroad, 1925, reprinted winter 2001 in The Third Rail