Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/101

 The Central Railroad of Long Island to hear was released to the press: the Stewart road would adopt the Flushing route after all, connecting with the Flushing & North Side R.R. in or near Flushing village. Construction was to begin at once.

Reading between the lines of this announcement suggested that a still more important agreement had been concluded, namely, an understanding with Poppenhusen and Locke relative to trackage rights on the Flushing & North Side R.R. into Long Island City. When the text of the agreement was published in the press in January 1871, it was discovered to be more far-reaching than had been suspected. The Stewart road would be formally named the Central Railroad of Long Island and would be built to the same quality standards as the Flushing & North Side. A. T. Stewart agreed to finance a steel double track road within the boundaries of his purchase from Hyde Part to Farmingdale and would use the finest materials available. The date for completion was to be July 4, 1872. The Poppenhusens, for their part, agreed to build a steel double track road from Flushing to Hyde Park, and to double track their existing line to Hunter's Point. The contract also bound them to issue to every newcomer who intended to make his home in Garden City or Hempstead a free ticket over the road for one year. More important, the entire operation of the Central R.R. and its maintenance would be undertaken by the Flushing & North Side management under stipulated conditions, and at least fifteen trains would be run each way daily, with certain expresses scheduled to make the Hempstead run in thirty minutes.

This agreement of the thirty-first of December, 1870, was the most important and fateful moment in the history of the Flushing road; with the stroke of a pen, the Flushing & North Side suddenly became no longer a local road, but rather the base of a larger new railroad system big enough to challenge the old and established Long Island R.R. itself.

Both parties to the agreement set to work immediately to let contracts for building. John Kellum, Stewart's engineer, sent an order to the Prussian steel factories in Westphalia for 3,000 tons of steel rails, and gave to Mr. John C. Wright of Freeport the contract to grade the railroad right-of-way through the plains from Hyde Park to Farmingdale. The first ground was turned over in the Meadowbrook area east of Hempstead. A second