The passenger trains of the Potsdam road were operated out of the new station in Watertown, just back of the Woodruff House--which we shall see in another chapter. For a time there was no train service for travelers between its station and that of the Rome road at the foot of Stone Street, the transfer between them being made by stages. But soon this was rectified and the one o'clock train, north from Watertown, allowed considerably more than an hour for connection after the arrival of the train from Rome, which gave abundant time for the consumption of one of Proprietor Dorsey's fine meals at the Woodruff. It was a good meal and not high-priced. The charge per day for three of them and a night's lodging thrown in was fixed at but $1.50. The early train which left Watertown at sharp six o'clock in the morning--afterwards it was fixed at a slightly later hour--made connection at Potsdam Junction with the through train on the Northern for Rouse's Point and, going by that roundabout way, a traveler might hope to reach Montreal in the evening of the day that he had left Watertown--if he enjoyed good fortune. Whilst upon the completion of the short line a few years later between DeKalb Junction and Ogdensburgh, one could reach the Canadian metropolis in an even more direct fashion, by the ferry steamer _Transit_ to Prescott, and then over the Grand Trunk Railway, just coming into the heyday of its fame. Watertown no longer was cut off from rail communication with the North. * * * * * The Potsdam & Watertown though now fairly launched, operating trains, and, from all external evidences at least, doing a fair business, nevertheless was grievously burdened with its grave financial difficulties. On May 16, 1857, a special finance committee, consisting of Messrs. Phelps, Cooper and Goulding, was appointed with power to carry along the company's growing floating debt, and in October of that selfsame year the President joined with them in their appeals to the creditors to have a little more patience. In the following spring the Directors discussed the propriety of asking the Legislature for an act exempting from taxation all railroads in the state that were not paying their dividends.