trains on the branches in 1932. Streamliners plied the rails between 1939 and 1963, including The East Coast Champion (from New York), The Florida Special (from New York), City of Miami (from Chicago), Dixie Flagler (from Chicago) and South Wind (from Chicago), all of which were jointly operated with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 The Key West extension was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. An FEC rescue train which, with the exception of steam locomotive 447, was overturned by the storm surge at Islamorada. of track were washed away by the hurricane, two miles of which ended up washing ashore on the mainland at Cape Sable. The FEC's Long Key Fishing Camp was also destroyed in the storm. Traffic was immediately embargoed south of Florida City after the storm while the Florida East Coast Railway decided whether or not to restore the line. The Florida East Coast Railway quickly determined that it was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections. The roadbed and remaining bridges south of Florida City were then sold to the state of Florida, which built the Overseas Highway to Key West, using much of the remaining railway infrastructure. A rebuilt Overseas Highway (U.S. Route 1), taking an alignment that closely follows the Overseas Railroad's original routing, continues to provide the only highway link to Key West, ending near the southernmost point in the continental United States. The remaining Long Key Viaduct, Seven Mile Bridge, and Bahia Honda Rail Bridge that once carried the Key West extension still stand and are on the National Register of Historic Places. Change in ownership In the early 1960s, Edward Ball, who controlled the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust, bought a majority ownership of FEC, buying its bonds on the open market, allowing the FEC to emerge from bankruptcy following protracted litigation with a group of the company's other bondholders, led by S.A. Lynch and associated with the Atlantic Coast Line which had proposed an alternate plan of reorganization. That same year, a labor contract negotiation turned sour. Ball was determined to save the railroad from the bankruptcy that had continued for more than a decade. Ball was certain that if the company didn't become profitable, the equipment and track would deteriorate to the point where some lines would become unsafe or unusable and require partial abandonment. Later, in