*Update * Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus will hold it's last shows ever May 12, 2017 - May 21, 2017 at the Nassau Coliseum. Come on out and see the famous train for the last time!! Alexander Turney Stewart, the merchant prince of Manhattan, had the
bright idea of building a model city on the Hempstead Plains of
west-central Long Island, which he proceeded to do; it is today's
Garden City. To serve this purpose-built suburb, he created a
railroad out of older lines and new trackage built across the open
plains, the Central Railroad of Long Island. To get the bricks he
needed to build this vast complex of homes and rail, he built the
Nassau Brick Works in Central Park (today's Bethpage) and ran a
branch line there to serve it. Remnants of the Central line form
the Central Branch of the Long Island Rail Road and are
inextricably linked to William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.'s Long island
Motor Parkway. Wikipedia has more about this early marketing genius if you are interested.
The Central Road was abandoned between Garden City and Babylon,
and elsewhere. Only the stretch from Floral Park to Garden city and
the branch to Hempstead continued in use. Today, only the eastern
end of the Central, from the junction at Farmingdale to Babylon is
still (or, more correctly, again) in use. The old right of way from
Garden City eastward to where it is cut by the Meadowbrook Parkway
is still used occasionally by freights of the New York &
Atlantic (lessor of the LIRR freight service) and by the
Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey trains when the
"Greatest Show on Earth" plays the Nassau Coliseum
The elephants are walked from the train through the street to
the Coliseum and the Circus performers and crew live on the train
while they are there. So if you want to run away with the circus
now you know where to meet up with them.