Queens Surface Corporation

Defunct bus company in New York City

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.

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). 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. 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.

The Woodside Garage was located at 51 00 Northern Boulevard, at the southeast corner 51st Street and Northern Boulevard in Woodside, Queens, adjacent to the Winfield Junction of the Long Island Rail Road. It was the original headquarters of Queens Nassau Transit. It was also the successor to the NY&QC Woodside Trolley Barn, which opened in 1896 and burned down on June 24, 1930. The front facade of the trolley barn survives as a Verizon store in the Tower Square Shopping Center.