South Brooklyn

Company History: The SBK was born from the 1900 reorganization of the South Brooklyn Railroad & Terminal Company which ran from 38th Street and 9th Avenue northwest to the end of 38th Street in Brooklyn, New York. Originally, SBK was intended to be a paper railroad hosting the passenger trains of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (who owned SBK) as well as some Long Island Rail Road traffic. After just five years, LIRR vacated and the Brooklyn Heights Railroad was established to handle the freight traffic on the SBK. There then followed a period of extensions, trackage rights acquisitions and an abandonment culminating in the 1913 reorganization that placed all freight traffic on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit system in the hands of the South Brooklyn Railroad – a paper railroad no longer. Most of the line was electrified to accommodate trains of BRT (later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit) so electric locomotives were employed by SBK. Two Whitcomb diesels arrived in 1946. In 1961, the freight-only surface lines were dieselized and the trolley wire came down. The last regular freight customer (a pipe distributor) closed in 1994. Today the South Brooklyn Railway is used exclusively to move rolling stock on and off the New York Subway system for repair and replacement.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.