His first thought was for railroad facilities for Garden City. Accordingly he organized the Central Railroad Company of Long Island, in 1871.
     The route of this road left the North Side line in Flushing, just below Lawrence Avenue, ran south of Flushing, through Rocky Hill, to Creedmoor. This cut through Rocky Hill was the most extensive railroad cut on Long Island. From Creedmoor the road ran across Hempstead Plains to Garden City, intersecting the line of the Long Island Railroad at Hinsdale, or Hinsdale junction, now known as Floral Park. From Garden City the line was continued eastward, crossing the old Hempstead Branch of the Long Island Railroad. It then sent out a branch down to Hempstead, east of the old branch, and then continued out to Bethpage, where Stewart had started an immense brick works, for which he wished railroad service. This extension from Garden City to Bethpage was completed in May, 1873, when the service was started with three trains a day. This service was given by the Flushing & North Side Railroad, which had just leased the road for operation.
     The traffic was very light on the "Stewart Line," as it was familiarly known to the public, and it did not pay. It proved a most disastrous venture for the North Side line, and was instrumental in bringing its ruin about the heads of the owners.
     The owners thought that extensions, with increased facilities, would bring dividends. Hence they built, in 1873, under the name of the Central Railroad Extension Company, an extension from Bethpage junction to the Fire Island dock in Babylon. This line crosses the South Side Railroad between Breslau (now Lindenhurst) and Babylon, at a point known as Belmont junction. It was in-tended to popularize Fire Island Beach as a resort, and attract traffic to it. The line was leased to the Flushing & North Side. This extension allowed trains to be run from Babylon to Hunter's Point via Garden City, Creedmoor and Flushing, and was a more direct route than the South Side line. The road bed was of gravel and reputed to be of the very best, so that the fast trains were routed over it.

The South Side Lines, Poppenhusen, Charlick, Austin Corbin, southern Brooklyn and much more as our story continue in Part Two.

     Poppenhusen, under the name of the Flushing & North Side Railroad, had operated trains to Flushing over the Woodside line since August, 1869, and over both the Woodside and Winfield lines since 1872. The old New York & Flushing line, from Winfield to Penny Bridge and Hunter's Point, was maintained intact the property of the Long Island Railroad, although not used by it.
     The Long Island Railroad, seeing that it had lost some profitable business to Flushing, built the Newtown & Flushing Railroad, from Winfield to Flushing. It was incorporated in 1871, and opened May, 1874. It left the line of the New York & Jamaica Railroad a short distance south of Winfield, or New York & Flushing junction, and ran east through the main part of the Village of Newtown, just north of the intersection of Grand Street and Hoffman Boulevard. It then ran east along the north bank of Horse Brook through to Corona Park, then northeast along Flushing Creek, across that creek and into Flushing. Its station is still standing on Jaggar Avenue, just south of Bradford Avenue, this station, therefore, being but a block south of the Main Street Station on the North Side line. This line cut into the business of the North Side line at its most vital point. It was known as the "White Line," because its cars were painted white. The competition of this line forced Poppenhusen to lower his rates to fifteen cents a round trip from Flushing to Hunter's Point in order to compete with the rate of the "White Line," which had been established at that figure in the fall of 1874. These rates were ruinously low, and cut seriously into the revenues of the North Side line.
     In the year 1869 A. T. Stewart, the famous New York merchant, bought from the town of Hempstead 7,000 acres of land on that vast level tract known as Hempstead Plains, for the sum of $400,000. This money was known as the "Plains Fund," and was used for the support of the poor and of the schools by the town. In the midst of these plains, just north of the Village of Hempstead, Stewart laid out Garden City, destined to be one of the best planned and most beautiful places in America.

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