In 1904 the New York & Long Beach Railroad was merged and leases renewed with the Long Island Railroad Company North Shore Branch, and the New York & Rockaway Beach Railway, each for fifty years.

The Bay Ridge Improvement--In 1905 the so-called Bay Ridge improvement was started. For some years past the line from Bay Ridge to Manhattan Beach junction had been abandoned for passenger traffic, and was used only for freight. At this time the tracks were depressed, and run through an open cut past Ocean Avenue. They were then run on an embankment to New Lots, and then along the surface, and finally into a cut again and through a tunnel from Atlantic Avenue to Aberdeen Street, this tunnel being a bit west of the old right-of -way.
     From Fresh Pond junction the line was continued to Woodside and thence over the Hell Gate Bridge by the New York Connecting Railroad, to the Bronx, where a connection was established with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. Another connection near Woodside allowed trains to be run from New England over the Hell Gate Bridge to Long Island City, and thence to Manhattan under the East River. The route of the New York Connecting Railroad made a through line from New England to Bay Ridge on the Long Island Railroad, with the elimination of all grade crossings. At the same time, the Manhattan Beach Division from Manhattan Beach junction south, was also elevated on an embankment, together with the Brighton line of the B.R.T. For this purpose the tracks of the Manhattan Beach Division were moved some distance to the west of the old right-of-way, so that the same embankment might be used by both lines. The Bay Ridge Improvement was finally completed in 1910.
     In connection with the Bay Ridge Improvement, an entire network of freight yards was constructed by the Long Island Railroad. The line from Ocean Avenue to Bay Ridge was depressed, streets being carried across the cut on steel viaducts.

About 1895 the old vacuum brake, which is still used in Europe, was replaced by the modern air-brake, and Westinghouse train signals and automatic couplings were introduced. New and more powerful locomotives were bought. When Corbin took charge of the railroad, fifty-six and sixty-one-pound rails were used, many of the iron rails even lighter. In 1895, the eighty-pound steel rail was standard. Block signals and interlocking towers were built and installed. In fact, Austin Corbin changed the road from an old run-down railroad, to one foremost in point of improvements and modern equipment.
     Praise Corbin's Accomplishments--Austin Corbin died June 4, 1896. To quote from the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Directors: "Long Island, for so many years the field of his labors, will long remember Austin Corbin. To him, more than to any other, it owes its development and growth. What he accomplished for the Long Island Railroad Company cannot be easily told in words. For seventeen years its President, he was intensely interested in its prosperity and success. No enterprise was so near his heart or occupied so much of his thoughts. Declining any compensation, he gave to its service the full measure of his great abilities and untiring energy, and it is to his wise and efficient administration and his devoted labors, that the present prosperous condition of the Company is due."
     When Austin Corbin assumed control, the railroad was ridiculed as "a right of way and two streaks of rust." When he left it, it was a prosperous suburban railroad, doing a large and profitable summer business, together with considerable through passenger and freight business.
     A readjustment of the relations of the Long Island Railroad with many of its subsidiary companies took place at this time. In 1902 The New York Bay Extension Railroad, the Great Neck & Port Washington Railroad, and the Montauk Extension Railroad were merged.

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