It was popularly known as the Brighton Beach Railroad. It was a serious competitor of the Manhattan Beach line of the Long Island. In time the Brighton line was taken over by the B.R.T. and is at present operated as a part of the New York Consolidated Railway with steel multiple unit subway electric trains. Its five cent fare to Coney Island has taken practically all the business to these resorts. [By publication in 1925, the Brighton Line was operated by the New York Rapid Transit Corporation, i.e., the BMT--Ed.] The Long Island Railroad still operates two or three trains per day over the Manhattan Beach Division from Long Island City. The first station past East New York is Rugby, formerly known as Ford's Corners. The next station is Kouwenhoven, then Vanderveer Park at Flatbush Avenue, formerly known as Flatlands Station. Then comes Ocean Avenue, or Manhattan Beach junction and then the trains go south to Manhattan Beach, where the line is stub ended, the curve back of the hotels along the beach having been eliminated.
     In the year 1877 an event of great importance to the Long Island Railroad took place. This was the rebuilding of the line into Brooklyn. Atlantic Avenue saw that it had lost more than it had gained when the great jeopardy to life and limb, in the form of locomotives tearing through the streets at the murderous rate of twelve miles an hour, had been removed.

The line from Bay Ridge to Manhattan Beach junction was used for some time and afterwards abandoned to the use of freight alone. The entire system was consolidated into The New York, Brooklyn and Manhattan Beach Railway in 1885 and leased to the Long Island by their joint owner and president, Austin Corbin.

The Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad Company was formed in 1874 by the consolidation of the Park Avenue Railroad Company and the Greenwood and Coney Island Railroad Company, which roads had been chartered a few years before. The company owned many street car lines in Brooklyn which connected at Ninth Avenue and Twentieth Street for the steam cars to Coney Island. The line ran down what is now known as Gravesend Avenue. The leading spirit in this company was Andrew R. Culver, who chartered the road. It was familiarly known as the Culver Line. From the old City Line to Kensington junction, ran the Prospect Park and South Brooklyn Railroad Company, leased to the Culver Road in 1889. This line, and the Culver Road from Kensington junction at Cortelyou Road and Gravesend Avenue south to Coney Island is the present Culver Line of the B.M.T. The New York and Coney Island Railroad from Coney Island to the Point was leased to the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad in 1879. In 1893, the Long Island Railroad bought control of all these lines. In 1899, it leased them to the Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company for 999 years. [In 1919 and 1920] the line was elevated and operated by the third rail system by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.

The Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad Company was formed in 1877 and opened in July, 1878. It ran from Franklin and Atlantic Avenues south to Manhattan Beach. From August, 1878, to 1883, it ran over the Long Island Railroad from Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues to Bedford Station at Franklin Avenue and then south to Brighton Beach.

Little rapid transit engines, like this one, provided frequent service from Brooklyn to Jamaica before five-cent trolleys and els made it impossible to compete. Similar engines were used on els.

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