Evergreen Branch

Evergreen Branch
Maximum extent of the Evergreen Branch (1878-1883)
Overview
Status	Abandoned
Owner	Long Island Rail Road
Locale	Brooklyn, New York, USA
Termini	Greenpoint Cooper Avenue
Stations	8
Service
System	Long Island Rail Road
Operator(s)	Long Island Rail Road
History
Opened	1874
Closed	1984
Technical
Number of tracks	2
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Route map East River Greenpoint Fifth Street Humboldt Street Grand Street Bushwick Branch (South Side Crossing) Ridgewood Myrtle Avenue Line (Myrtle Avenue) Base Ball Grounds Bay Ridge Branch to Fresh Pond Junction Cooper Avenue Bay Ridge Branch to 65th Street Yard This diagram: view talk edit

The Evergreen Branch was a branch of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) that ran in Brooklyn and part of Queens in New York City. The line, at its fullest extent, ran between Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. The line consisted of two leased portions. The first portion, between Greenpoint and Jefferson Street, was leased from the Glendale and East River Railroad. The second portion, from Jefferson Street to Ridgewood, was leased from the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad Company, and was known as the Evergreen Branch, a name later extended to the rest of the line.

The Glendale and East River Railroad was incorporated in 1874 to give the South Side Railroad an additional waterfront terminal, but was instead used to connect Austin Corbin's New York and Manhattan Beach Railroad to New York City via ferry service from Greenpoint. The Evergreen Branch opened in 1878, with service only running during the summer season from May to September. In 1876, it was consolidated into the LIRR, and service to Greenpoint was replaced with service to Long Island City instead, with a shuttle allowing passengers from Greenpoint to get to Manhattan Beach. The line was converted to standard gauge to allow for the transferring of freight along the line. Passenger service ended in May 1886, and freight service ended four years later. The right-of-way between Greenpoint and South Side Crossing was abandoned in 1896 and 1897, with few traces of that branch left.

With passenger service over, the remainder of the line between South Side Crossing and Cooper Avenue became exclusively used for freight. In 1939, the section of the line between Himrod Street and Starr Street was removed. While the LIRR was sold in 1966 to New York State, the branch was kept as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and through corporate changes became part of Conrail. In 1984, Conrail was granted permission to abandon the branch. While parts of the branch's right-of-way have been built upon in recent years, parking lots, newer buildings, and old rails, show where the line formerly went.