Whitestone Branch
The Whitestone Branch was a branch of the Long Island Rail Road, running north and east along the left bank of the Flushing River from the Port Washington Branch near the modern Willets Point/Flushing sections of Queens, New York. It crossed the river on one of the three bridges that were later torn down for the Van Wyck Expressway, then ran north along Flushing Bay and east along the East River to Whitestone.
History
Originally conceived as a branch of the Flushing and [North Side Railroad] that was intended to lead into Westchester County, New York in 1869, it was consolidated into the Long Island Rail Road in 1876 when its owners, the Poppenhusen family, took over the bankrupt LIRR. It later became part of a subsidiary called the Flushing Railroad">Flushing, Queens">Flushing Railroad.On October 12, 1912, the branch was electrified. In the 1920s, the branch began to lose patronage and the LIRR sought to rid itself of the line, despite calls for improvements in service. There was a proposal for the city-owned Independent Subway System to buy the line and incorporate it into the New [York City Subway] system. The deal was not successful, most likely due to the numerous grade crossings that would have been extremely costly to remove. The Interstate Commerce Commission allowed the LIRR to abandon the line in 1932.
Most of the branch was removed, except a small section of the line leading to the Corona Yard which remained well into the 1970s when the LIRR closed the Corona Yard and turned it over to the New York City Transit Authority for subway use. Today, only a small section of track remains just east of Mets–Willets Point station, branching off from the Port Washington Branch east of the station. The Flushing–Main Street station of the Port Washington Branch was so named to distinguish it from the Whitestone's Flushing–Bridge Street station. Despite the closing of the Bridge Street station, the LIRR continues to use the name "Main Street" for the Port Washington Branch station to this day.
A spur of the line near the Flushing River was abandoned when it went underwater in 1983. Private homes have been built over the section of the line in Whitestone Landing.