moving material for that purpose,had to call off the whole project. Instead, the ties and iron were reshipped from Patchogue to Rockaway and three gangs of track layers were kept constantly busy repairing the dangerous roadbed.
An important feature of the rehabilitation project was the extension of the telegraph line from Far Rockaway station to the Neptune House terminus. The telegraph service was entirely reorganized and new and capable operators installed in the places of those found incompetent or inattentive. With the improvement of the telegraph, a new code of train signals was put into operation whereby the chief dispatcher at Bushwick might know the movements of any train anywhere on the road. More impressive still was the installation of vacuum brakes in place of the old hand brakes on all the Southern engines, coaches and freight cars.
As if to insure the impossibility of another costly wreck on the Rockaway Branch with its damaging publicity, elaborate and painstaking track repairs were again prosecuted the following spring (May 1876) just before the beginning of the beach season. A gang moved south from Valley Stream down the peninsula removing every unsound tie and covering the roadbed with a heavy loam about a foot deep with a layer of gravel at the top. By this means the shifting sand was held in place and kept from blowing out from under the ties. Steel rails were substituted for iron ones all along the Rockaway Branch and on the main line. The managers of the Southern were sparing no expense these days to bring back the former high reputation of the system.
During 1874 and 1875 another powerful movement was at work in Williamsburgh that would materially affect the operations and fortunes of the Southern RR. When the road first entered Williamsburgh in 1868, service from Bushwick Station to South Eighth Street ferry had been maintained by teams of horses drawing individual coaches to the ferry. Then, in 1869, the railroad, over powerful opposition, had mustered the bare minimum of support necessary to insure the introduction of dummies on Boerum Street and Broadway. To placate the opposition, the Southern road had three of the newest and best dummy engines available constructed for its use. To secure even further public support, the railroad at great expense promised to use the much less suitable groove rail for the standard T rail
