Queens Surface Corporation

**Queens Surface Corporation** was a bus company in New York City, United States, operating local service in Queens and the Bronx and express service between Queens and Manhattan until February 27, 2005, when the MTA Bus Company took over the operations. The company was known for its orange paint scheme, used since the company's inception in the late 1930s.

Queens Surface Corporation was privately held by the Gordon and Burke families. The Queens Surface Corporation facility was located at 128-15 28th Avenue in the College Point neighborhood of Queens.

## History

### New York and Queens County Railway

The New York and Queens County Railway (NY&QC) became the largest trolley line in Queens in 1896, through the consolidating of four previous streetcar operators: Flushing and College Point Electric Railway, Long Island City and Newtown Railway, Newtown Railway, and the original Steinway Railway Company. It served Long Island City, Woodside, Astoria, North Beach, College Point, Jamaica, and even the Queensboro Bridge. Between 1903 and 1922, the NY&QC became an affiliate of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. On June 24, 1930, the Woodside Car barn was hit with a massive fire that destroyed much of their fleet, along with the fleet of their competitors, the Steinway Railway (see below).

### Steinway Railway

The Steinway Railway operated in northwestern Queens in 1892, through the merger of the Rikers Avenue and Sanford Point Railroad and Steinway and Hunters Point Railroad, only to be acquired by NY&QC in 1896. As NY&QC faced bankruptcy in 1922, it began to sell off Steinway as a somewhat independent company. It was actually bought by the Third Avenue Railway System but was allowed to operate under its own name.

### Bustitution and re-merging

On February 19, 1926, NY&QC established a bus division called the Queens-Nassau Transit Lines. Queens-Nassau buses replaced all NY&QC trolleys by 1937, with the last being motorized on October 30 of that year. In the Fall of 1938, the Steinway Railway was bought by Queensboro Bridge Railway Company and renamed as Steinway Omnibus. Steinway began operating buses over former Steinway Railway lines on September 29, 1939. Both companies were operated by the same management, and casually referred to as the "orange buses". Queens-Nassau was renamed Queens Transit Corporation in 1957, and Steinway Omnibus became Steinway Transit in 1959. The two companies merged again in 1986 to form the Queens/Steinway Transit Corporation. The joint company was owned by the H.E. Salzberg Company (scrap metal and short-haul railways) with father Harold Salzberg, son Murray M. Salzberg (1915-1984, aged 69) and grandson Harry Salzberg, which had ripped up the rails, running these two companies until 1988, when the Linden Bus Company acquired the routes from the aging grandson Harry Salzberg. Shortly thereafter and before operations commenced, Linden Bus Company changed its name to Queens Surface Corporation.

On February 27, 2005, the MTA Bus Company took over the operations of the Queens Surface routes, part of the city's takeover of all the remaining privately operated bus routes.

## Bus routes

Prior to MTA Bus takeover, Queens Surface operated the following routes that are now based in College Point Bus Depot, the LaGuardia Depot (the former Triboro Coach depot), and the Eastchester Depot (the former New York Bus Service depot in the Bronx).

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT ROUTES.
2. ↑ Full text of 'State of New York Department of Public Service Metropolitan Division: Fourteenth Annual Report For the Calendar Year 1934'". New York State Department of Public Service (February 14, 1935).
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 BIZ DRIVEN AWAY. BUS REROUTE HURTS SALES, SAY JAMAICA MART OWNERS. *Daily News (New York)* (March 2, 2006).
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The MTA 2006 ANNUAL REPORT: Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the Year Ended December 31, 2006 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the Year Ended December 31, 2006. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (May 1, 2007).
5. ↑ Tatanka49 (2015). The Q69 stops here. Retrieved on August 24, 2022.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Full text of "New York and Queens County Railway and the Steinway Lines, 1867-1939.". Vincent F. Seyfried (1950).
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Template:Cite book
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 MAJOR BUS CO. TO JOIN MTA. *Daily News (New York)* (February 24, 2005).
9. ↑ MTA Bus Service Changes. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (April 2008).
10. ↑ Queens Bus Map: Notes. mta.info (December 2002).
11. ↑ MTA Bus Service Changes. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (January 2009).
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Template:Cite news
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Northeast Queens Bus Study. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (September 2015).