Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/142

 126 rate current in 1873 before the disastrous competition of the White Line. The rates from Hunter'sPoint were:

The overnight change on the White Line proved the most dramatic of all; a package of 100 tickets (the bargain rate of 7½¢ a ride) rose from $7.50 to $16!

The immediate effect of the increased rates was a sharp drop in the traffic from Flushing to New York, but this gave joy to the shopkeepers who had previously seen the loss of all their trade to Manhattan, thanks to the 15¢ round trip fare. Many of the railroad personnel feared momentary dismissal, but no drastic cut occurred. Superintendent Barton, the North Side's able superintendent, resigned as of March 1 because of strained relations with the management, and the Long Island R.R.s general superintendent Snyder succeeded him. To avoid confusion in tickets, conductors on the Long Island R.R. were notified to accept North Side and Central tickets when presented in payment for fare by passengers. In May the general business offices of the Flushing & North Side, the Central R.R. and the Southern R.R. were all transferred into one office in the second story of the Long Island R.R. depot at Hunter's Point.

The physical changes that the Poppenhusens introduced at this time were far-reaching and most significant, for they represented the beginnings of the modern track layout and operational arrangement of the present Long Island R.R. These changes made in the spring of 1876 and the spring of 1877 have persisted to our own day, and never again were so many changes made at one time as during this brief Poppenhusen regime.

The first major change was a predictable one, the suppression on April 16, 1876, of the hated White Line that had been a thorn in the flesh of the Poppenhusens for two and a half years. The tracks were not torn up, but all trains were withdrawn; there was a public outcry for the moment, but since the fares were now the same at all stations in Flushing, and two depots fully adequate to handle the traffic, the excitement soon died down. The