Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/80

 The South Side Falls to the Long Island between cars when he decided to make a run from one to the other, and six wheels passed over his abdomen. The superintendent of the road, Mr. Douglass, admitted no culpability but freely offered to bear the expense of burial. At the inquest it was noted that it was the custom of numerous boys living at a distance from the ferries to steal a ride when on their way home, often loitering about the ferry a half hour or more for the train to leave the depot just to avoid walking home. When the cars started, the railroad police chased them at the ferry, but the boys soon caught the train along Broadway.

It is not known just what action the South Side RR took to avoid a repetition of these accidents, but it must have been very effective because we hear of no further casualties. Nevertheless, three such accidents provided grist for the mill of the anti-steam people. Indignation meetings were called and though poorly attended at first, continued to make themselves heard. The residents of South Eighth Street, which was only thirty feet wide and built as a residential street, continued their campaign to get rid of the dummies. No one seemed to mention the fact that the horse cars killed a far greater number of people every day in Brooklyn than did the South Side dummies.

To further placate public feeling, and to avoid the criticism made from time to time that their rails were breaking carriage axles and overturning wagons, the South Side RR, in August 1870, purchased heavy duty grooved rails for Boerum Street and Broadway. This was in accordance with a resolution of the Common Council of May 29, requiring grooved rails along Boerum Street. On September 16, 1870 these new rails were delivered; all were seventy-pound groove and would cover the whole distance to Bushwick depot. Installation of these new rails must have been started immediately, for by October 1 all the old T rail had been pulled up.

Oddly enough, in 1873 the South Side RR obtained permission from the Common Council to lay a modified strap rail along South Eighth Street and Broadway. The inner flange had to be built up with wood and to this would be spiked an iron strip half an inch thick, creating an iron inner flange and thus a virtual groove rail. Why this was done we are not told; perhaps the Broadway rails received heavier wear because of joint operation with the horse car companies.