Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/81



HEN Messrs. Poppenhusen and Locke and the Flushing members of the board of directors incorporated the Flushing & North Side R.R., it was laid down as a policy from the very beginning that only the finest materials and the very best workmanship would go into the new railroad. Although none of the men connected with the road possessed any railroad experience, all were successful business men, and some, like Locke, had an industrial background that enabled them to judge materials and men. When the Flushing & North Side R.R., therefore, was let out to contract in 1868, responsible contractors were hired and the finest construction materials sought. At the end of the Civil War the iron and steel industry in the United States, although greatly stimulated by the war, was still well behind the great Ruhr steel complex in Germany operated by Prussian magnates. Poppenhusen, being a German himself, and accustomed to making almost annual business visits to Germany, knew and appreciated the quality of Prussian steel, and awarded the contract for the steel rails of the Flushing road to the firm of Funke & Elbers in Prussia.

There was an additional local reason for this move; a branch of the Funke family had settled in College Point and had established a large silk mill there. The Poppenhusens and the Funkes mixed socially, and in fact represented the cream of local society in the village, so that the contract award was a foregone conclusion. The thousands of ties used on the road seem to have been contracted for indiscriminately, both from Long Island and from New York dealers.

It was not the custom in those days of light engines and still lighter coaches to lay down all steel rails; indeed, even the largest trunk line roads in the country used iron rails, and this was certainly sufficient for engines that weighed thirty tons at