Sag Harbor Branch

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The Sag Harbor Branch was a branch of the Long Island Rail Road, running from Bridgehampton on the Montauk Branch north to Sag Harbor. It originally continued west from Bridgehampton along the Montauk Branch to Eastport and used what later became the Manorville Branch to the Main Line at Manorville.

LIRR president Oliver Charlick built the branch to head off plans by the South Side Railroad to extend their line beyond Patchogue. The line was part of the LIRR's original charter, and had been surveyed in 1854 to leave the Main Line at Riverhead. But Riverhead refused to pay the LIRR for the benefits of being at a junction, so the west end was moved to Manorville in the pine barrens. At Quogue station, the railroad placed its depot where the present one is, but the village wanted it on Old Depot Road. One Sunday morning, the village's building was dumped in the woods several miles to the east.[1]

The piece spurring off the later Montauk Branch was abandoned in 1940.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ron Ziel and George H. Foster, Steel Rails to the Sunrise, ©1965
  2. ^ Sag Harbor Branch (Unofficial LIRR History web site)