Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/137

Collapse of the Poppenhusen System and return only 15¢. Corona 15¢, and Woodside, Winfield and Newtown 10¢.

These rates were certainly ruinously low for both railroads. Oliver Charlick lost money on every passenger he carried, but stubbornly hung on, sardonically savoring the distress of his rival. The Poppenhusens tried to recoup their losses by charging the former rates on College Point and Whitestone traffic, but the residents shrewdly refused to buy tickets for their actual destination, preferring to pay only to Flushing, and then purchasing the cut-rate round trip tickets from there to New York. The Flushing public profited handsomely from the intense rivalry of the railroads. Three different railroad stations afforded a convenience never enjoyed before or since. Each road offered twenty or more trains a day each way and at the lowest possible cost. Even the ride itself provided entertainment and excitement, for, because of the nearness of the two parallel rights-of-way, the engineers of the rival trains raced each other all the way into Long Island City, flaunting the superiority of their equipment.

In February 1874 a rumor went about that Charlick was making overtures to the Poppenhusens to stop his trains on condition that he received 5¢ for every Flushing passenger carried by the Flushing & North Side R.R. It was estimated that about 1,000 persons commuted from Flushing to New York daily, which would net Charlick $50 a day or $250 a week, more than the present receipts of the White Line. Needless to say, this blackmail feeler was indignantly rejected by the Poppenhusens.

Beginning in 1873 the operation of the Central R.R. tended to offset slightly the damaging competition of the White Line by its cheap freight rates. The opening of the Woodside Branch in April 1874 also gave the Flushing & North Side R.R. an edge over the White Line, for it provided another track to Long Island City, and hence faster service to the ferries. Nevertheless the damaging competition continued. Both roads came out with package tickets of 100, and merchants in Flushing began to sell these themselves at a slight mark-up to persons who did not or could not use 100 tickets. Feeling itself imposed upon, The Flushing & North Side withdrew these package tickets in May 1875. The result of all this jockeying of fares was that people shifted their patronage from road to road, while the operators increasingly felt the financial pinch.