History
The line was conceived and surveyed in 1854. In 1869 LIRR president Oliver Charlick wanted the branch to head off plans by the South Side Railroad to extend their line beyond Patchogue. The original plans called for the branch 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 in 1869. During construction the Quogue station "on a Sunday morning" was moved by the village from its original and current location to a location on Old Depot Road.
The Sag Harbor Line remained the farthest point on the LIRR's south shore line until 1895 when the LIRR extended the road at Bridgehampton to Montauk leaving the Sag Harbor section a spur of the Montauk Line. In 1906, a new station was opened in Sag Harbor named "Lamb's Corner". Sometime later, this station was renamed to "Noyack Road". During World War I, a freight spur was built onto the newly reinforced Long Wharf in Sag Harbor to deliver torpedoes for the E.W. Bliss Company for testing in the harbor.
The Sag Harbor branch was abandoned on May 3, 1939. A former section of the line in Sag Harbor known as Wharf Street has been designated Suffolk County Road 81 and runs from NY 114 to the Sag Harbor Pier. The rest of the road bed was transformed into the Long Pond Greenbelt. The road bed is now a hiking trail. The freight house at the Sag Harbor train station is now the Sag Harbor Garden Center.
Read more about this topic: Sag Harbor Branch
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