In September, 1880, Thomas Messinger was appointed receiver of the Flushing & North Side Railroad, on which the bondholders were beginning to foreclose the mortgages. In December of that year, the road was sold at auction to Drexel, Morgan & Co. In April, 1881, the road was sold to the Long Island City & Flushing Railroad Company, which was organized for that purpose. In October, 1881, the North Shore Railroad Company was sold at auction to a committee of bondholders. In April, 1882, the property was conveyed to Austin Corbin. The road had been abandoned from Flushing to Great Neck in August, 1881, the Long Island Railroad Company refusing to operate it as being unsafe. When sold to Austin Corbin in 1882, operation was resumed. In October, 1884, the road was sold to the Long Island City & Flushing Railroad Company. This road, from the time of its incorporation, was leased to the Long Island Railroad Company. The Long Island City & Flushing Railroad Company also acquired the Whitestone & Westchester Railroad Company in 1887, on which a mortgage had been foreclosed in 1886.
     The Creedmoor branch, from Hinsdale to Creedmoor, was sold to the Long Island Railroad Company in 1870 by the parties who had just foreclosed a mortgage on it. The right of way from Creedmoor to Flushing has passed through various hands to the Stuyvesant Real Estate Company, which is a subsidiary of the Long Island Railroad. A mortgage on the Central Railroad Extension Company was foreclosed in 1881 and the following year it was acquired by the Long Island Railroad. The portion of the Central Railroad from Hinsdale to Bethpage and from Garden City to Hempstead was bought from the heirs of A. T. Stewart in 1892. These lines had previously been operated under lease from the "Stewart Railroad," owned by the Stewart heirs.

     Austin Corbin Gains Control--In December, 1880, Drexel, Morgan & Co. sold their interest in the Long Island Railroad to Austin Corbin and a syndicate of Boston and London capitalists. The Englishmen were to build a series of large resort hotels on Long Island, to which the railroad was to extend its service.

[Corbin] conveyed it to the New York & Rockaway Beach Railway Company, which was organized by him for that purpose, and it was leased to the Long Island Railroad for operation. In 1886, there was also a readjustment of the tracks of the two companies between Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park whereby the New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway Railroad Company's tracks between Hammels and a point about one and a half miles east, near Arverne, were used, and from here to Far Rockaway the Long Island Railroad tracks were used. The entire route was double track when built in 1880.
     In May, 1879, the operation of the South Hempstead branch from Valley Stream to Hempstead was abandoned and also the operation of the Central Road from Hunter's Point to Hinsdale and east was abandoned, the last train having passed over these roads about the first of the month. Later in 1879 the Central Railroad from Flushing to Creedmoor was torn up entirely.
     In June, 1879, the Southern Railroad Company of Long Island was sold under a mortgage foreclosure and in November of the same year it was conveyed to the Brooklyn & Montauk Railroad Company, which had been organized for that purpose. The lines were immediately leased to the Long Island Railroad. The Far Rockaway Branch Railroad Company was not included in the original mortgage foreclosure, but in 1882 that branch was also foreclosed and promptly turned over to the Brooklyn & Montauk Railroad Company. The South Hempstead branch was also foreclosed, but it was never disposed of, and has been abandoned ever since 1879.
     At the time of the abandonment of the Central Railroad, the line of the Flushing & Woodside Railroad from Woodside to Flushing Bridge Street was also abandoned. The trains were all run from Winfield to Whitestone junction, whence they went across the meadows to Bridge Street, Flushing, and to Whitestone, or proceeded to Main Street, Flushing, and to Great Neck.

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