The original surface steam railroad opened in 1875 from Greenwood Depot on the eastern side of Green-wood Cemetery at current Prospect Park West (9th Avenue) and 20th Street in the then-City of Brooklyn where transfer could be made to horse-drawn streetcars to downtown Brooklyn.
[1] The Culver Line was owned by the Long Island Rail Road from 1895 to 1899 and for a time both before (by interline agreements) and throughout that period, used the Culver Line in whole or in part for a variety of services in combination with its New York and Manhattan Beach Railway lines to provide services variously connecting downtown Brooklyn via the Fifth Avenue Elevated, the 39th Street Ferry and the 65th Street Ferry on the one hand, and the Sheepshead Bay Race Track, West Brighton and Manhattan Beach, the latter two on Coney Island, on the other hand.
When this branch, parallel to Brooklyn 37th Street, was electrified with trolley wire elevated trains from the Fifth Avenue Line were able to use the Culver Line to reach Coney Island directly from Park Row in Lower Manhattan to Coney Island.
Under the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the Culver became the primary service on the Fifth Avenue El.
The McDonald Avenue Line traced the entire route of the original Culver Line, except at its very southern end, where it rather ironically ended at the West 5th Street Depot of its former rival, the Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad.