Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/85

 Operations on the Flushing and North Side In these early days of steam operation, turning of the trains at the terminals had to be accomplished by means of turntables and the Flushing & North Side R.R. operated such installations at Hunter's Point station, College Point, Whitestone, Great Neck, and, of course, Flushing.

The main shops for servicing and repairing the rolling stock on the road were located at College Point station at what is now Eighteenth Avenue and 127th Street. The car houses and engine house extended up to Fourteenth Avenue, and over to 128th Street, occupying in all one small block. Skilled German workmen serviced the cars and built several of the road's elegant passenger coaches in the shops. It is regrettable that no contemporary description of the place has come down to us.

The rolling stock of the Flushing & North Side R.R. was in the early Seventies perhaps the finest in the nation. Poppenhusen was determined to have only the finest of everything, and with his unlimited capital, and the abundance of skilled German artisans in the New York area of that day, he succeeded in getting what he wanted. The first locomotives, the College Point and the Whitestone, were delivered to the road in August, 1868, and did yeoman work with the construction crews. The Woodside arrived in August, 1869, the Bayside in January, 1870, the Newtown in May, 1871, and the Winfield in September, 1871. Each of these names honored one of the communities served by the line, a pleasant custom in these early days of railroading. All these engines were of the familiar 4-4-0 American pattern; they were comparatively light, weighing twenty-six to twenty-eight tons each.

We are fortunate in possessing an account of the maiden trip of the Winfield. The new engine, No. 7, had been received at the College Point shops in early September 1871 and had been readied for service. The officers of the road had informed the villagers of Winfield that the engine was to be named in their honor. The local citizenry responded by organizing a ceremony and forwarded to President Poppenhusen an invitation to a formal "baptism." At 9 A.M. on the morning of October 4 the gleaming new engine, its bells ringing and its whistle shrieking, steamed into the siding at the station under the admiring gaze of the townspeople. The general ticket agent of the road, Mr. Waldron, and the chief roadmaster. accompanied the engine as repre-