Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/136

 120 lick was able to get the permission of the village trustees for his hand-picked route.

The Poppenhusens, furious at this invasion, brought out their own heavy artillery. In the same month of March 1871 they filed articles of association for the Flushing Village Railroad, a short line that was to utilize the Central roadbed to Lawrence Street and then parallel Franklin Avenue for about a mile to near Northern Boulevard. The hidden joker in the plan was that the road was to be built atop an eight-foot embankment, which the Poppenhusens piously protested was necessary to avoid cluttering the streets of Flushing with grade crossings. Charlick perceived immediately that the Flushing Village R.R. was designed purely to serve as a Chinese wall to obstruct his road into Flushing. Reluctantly, the two rivals were forced into a parley by the village trustees, and in June 1871 a truce was patched up. The Newtown & Flushing would still be built into Flushing, but Charlick had to shift his route one block south to avoid the proposed Central Junction depot grounds. The Poppenhusens for their part agreed to drop the Flushing Village R.R. scheme.

From November of 1871 to October 1873 the building of the rival road went on, a surprisingly long time for such a short road. Finally, on November 10, 1873 the new line opened for business. In a bid to divert traffic to his road, Charlick exerted himself to make his road outshine the Poppenhusen's. He opened a convenient depot popularly referred to as the Jaggar Avenue Station on Main Street between Forty-first Avenue and Forty-first Road on the present Loew Theatre site. He also provided all new coaches, painted pure white and assigned some of the fastest engines to the route. The new road, popularly dubbed the White Line, because of its white cars, soon cut into the business of the Flushing & North Side R.R.

In the beginning the White Line charged the same rates as the Flushing & North Side to Hunter's Point and the way stations, but within a month competition began. During 1874 the rate to Woodside and Winfield fell from 15¢ to 13¢ and then 10¢; Newtown and Corona fell from 20¢ to 15¢ and the fare to Flushing from 25¢ to 20¢. By the end of 1875 even these low tariffs were further cut by special excursion rates, books of 100 tickets, and round trip fares, making the run to Flushing