The tracks of the Culver Shuttle await disposal at Cortelyou
Road during demolition in August 1985 Fewer and fewer subway
riders remember the Culver Shuttle, which ran between the 9th
Avenue stop on the present W line, and the Ditmas Avenue stop,
on the present F. The Shuttle ran between 1954 and 1975 and was
itself a remnant of the Culver Line, which was preceded by a
steam railroad line, the Prospect Park and Coney Island, which
beginning in 1875 ran between 9th Avenue and 20th Street to the
present Shell Road and Avenue X. The line was built by railroad
entrepreneur Andrew N. Culver. Beginning in 1889, Culver became
a partner in the new Union Depot at 36th Street and 5th Avenue,
built to serve Coney Island-bound trains. This was a key turn of
events, for it instituted the route the “Culver Line,” as
Brooklynites preferred to call it, for the next seven decades.
The PP&CI was soon extended to Coney Island, terminating at
about West 5th Street; by 1912, control was passed to the South
Brooklyn Railway, and b