Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/49

 The Flushing R. R. Goes Down Hill tilators destroyed, with bell cord unhung, with brakes out of order, with floors unswept, with glass unwashed, and everything about them shabby and cheap?" asks a devastatingly specific letter of December 1864.

Other complaints mention the poor class of employee, most of whom were overworked, underpaid, and gruff and surly to passengers. The service was beginning to reflect the poor condition of the road as well. From time to time the pile work would break down, causing long delays or abbreviated runs. When the Hunter's Point piling weakened, patrons were forced to change to the L.I.R.R. cars at Winfield, or to the Meeker Avenue horse cars at Penny Bridge. Since the company made no announcement of these failures, patrons paid the price of a through ride and received no rebate. When the Flushing Meadows piling broke down, patrons were evicted from the cars at Corona and had to continue on foot to Flushing.

As if the situation were not already bad enough, a series of misfortunes further weakened the road during 1863 and 1864. The wooden bridge over National Avenue caught fire on October 2, 1863 and was with difficulty repaired when the structure again took fire. On October 27, 1864, after midnight, some forty feet of the Flushing Meadows trestle on the Newtown side caught fire, probably from hot coals, and charred the trestle work sufficiently to halt all service for two days. On the quiet Sunday morning of October 30, 1864 the Flushing citizens were aroused from their beds by cries of fire from the Flushing depot. In minutes the whole structure was in flames, and tongues of fire soon communicated to the train sheds, which contained six passenger and three freight cars. The road was short of rolling stock as it was. As a result of this disaster, only three passenger coaches were left on the road. The locomotives were in another building and, by a miracle, were not harmed. By a curious coincidence four passenger cars being built for the Flushing road at Jersey City were also destroyed by fire the same week.

This series of blows was, by all means, the worst the road had suffered to date; the company had $1,500 insurance on the depot but nothing on the rolling stock. When it seemed that the road would be compelled to halt operations altogether, the Long Island R.R. came forward and loaned several passenger coaches to tide the company over the emergency.