Rivalry between the two existing companies had created much business for the courts in the meantime; the constitutionality of their char ters was questioned; and there were injunctions and counter-injunctions. The Court of Ap peals finally was asked to pass upon the consti tutionality of the charters, and it sustained them both by a decision which was unanimous. All injunctions were dissolved and work was pushed forward, not only on the pioneer West Side line, but also upon the Sixth avenue line, which had passed from Dr. Gilbert's control and was known now as the Metropolitan Elevated Road. This line, extending from Rector street to 59th street, was opened 5 June 1878. During 1879 the New York Elevated opened its West Side line to 83d street and constructed its Third ave nue line which was opened to 129th street the same year. By this time the new means of travel within the city had commended itself to popular favor to such a degree that the permanency of the enterprise was assured. The Manhattan Elevated Railway Company, organ ized under a Rapid Transit Act, passed in 1875, and chartered on 29 December of that year, took a lease of the roads owned by both the New York Elevated and the Metropolitan, the lease dating from 1 Feb. 1879. From that time the entire elevated system of New York City, of course not including the Brooklyn system, was known as the Manhattan Elevated Railway. In 1880 the Ninth avenue line was opened to 155th street; a spur from Chatham square created an additional terminus for the Third avenue line at city hall; a branch of the same line at 34th street afforded connection with the Second avenue line, which it crosses below grade, and gave access to the Long Island City Ferry from both lines; and a branch from the Third avenue line at 42d street connected with the Grand Central Railway Station.
Financial difficulties which had repeatedly beset the companies which had undertaken the development of this already gigantic project were of such magnitude in 1881 that the Man hattan went into the hands of receivers on 14 July. After the difficulties had been straight ened out and a reorganization of the company had been effected, each year was marked by ex tension and improvement of the service until the system became, in 1904, an elevated railway consisting of four main lines with branches, its total trackage being 117.14 miles, divided as fol lows: Main lines and branches, two tracks (each 37.68 miles), 75.36 miles; third track, used for express trains, 15.19 miles; sidings, 26.59 miles. The southern terminus of all the lines was at South Ferry. The Sixth and Ninth avenue lines ran through Battery Park to Greenwich street, diverging at Morris street. whence the Sixth avenue line extended through Church street to Murray street, through which it reached West Broadway; it traversed this thoroughfare to 3d street, passed through 3d street to Sixth avenue, which it followed to its terminus at 59tle street. the station being at 58th. A branch running westward through 53d street connected it with the Ninth avenue line. From Morris street the Ninth avenue line ran through Greenwich street to Ninth avenue and through that avenue to 110th street, where a double curve on a very high structure carried it into Eighth avenue, which it followed to the terminus at 155th street. The Second and Third avenue lines were one from South Ferry to Chatham square. After leaving the ferry they made a sharp turn into Front street; thence through Coenties slip and Hanover square they entered Pearl street, which they followed to and through the New Bowery to Chatham square. They diverged here, the Third avenue line con tinuing through the Bowery and Third avenue to the Harlem River. At 34th street passengers
desiring to reach the Long Island Ferry trans ferred to a train; and at 42d street another °shuttle train conveyed transfer pas sengers to the Grand Central station. Trains from city hall followed the same line, and pas sengers were transferred at Chatham square to the Second avenue line if they desired it, as well as at the two other transfer stations mentioned. From 129th street at the Harlem River the Third avenue line continued northward, cross ing the river by a fine bridge, open also to foot passengers. North of the river the line ran over a private right of way to Third avenue at East 148th street, whence it followed the ave nue to Pelham avenue in Fordham, opposite the entrance to Saint John's College. Pelham avenue was practically the end of the line, but from this point there was an extension to the Botanical Gardens in Bronx Park, about a half mile farther north. The Second avenue line, after leaving Chatham square, passed through Division, Allen and East 23d streets to Second avenue, through which it continued to the terminus at 129th street and the Harlem River, where passengers going further north trans ferred to the Third avenue line. Transfers were made at 34th street to tither the Long Island Ferry or the Third avenue line via the branch operated on that street. Down-town passengers on either the East or West Side were transferred at South Ferry to up-town trains on the other side. There was also a system of transfers to the surface lines at various points, the transfer costing the pas senger three cents extra.
Until 1901 steam locomotives were relied upon entirely for motive power. The matter of substituting electricity began to be agitated in 1885. The first experiments were made with a motor invented by Leo Daft which was kept in service intermittently on the Ninth avenue line, between 14th and 50th streets, from 27 Aug. 1885, until 19 October, when a series of carefully recorded daily runs was made, con tinuing. except on Sundays and election day, until 22 December. The object of this series of runs was to ascertain measurement of coal consumed, etc. The Daft motor derived its power from an insulated third rail. It did not commend itself to the management of the road, and the inventor was unable to make such im provement in it as to so secure its adoption. Dur ing the latter Dart of 1886 F. J. Springer oper ated an electric car successfully on the 34th street branch ; and in 1893 an electric locomotive designed by J. B. Enty which was operated by current derived from storage battery, or from a third rail, as might be found necessary, was tried on the same branch with excellent results, but neither of these inventions was regarded as wholly satisfactory. While New York led in adopting elevated railways, it permitted Liver pool to be the first in adopting electricity as motive power, the Liverpool Overhead 'Rail way, completed in 1893, adopting it at the outset. In the same year the Intermural Railway, a feature of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, made successful use of electricity in the opera tion of its cars. It was not until the spring of 1899 that the Manhattan Railway decided to use electricity, and the change from steam as motive power was made gradually, the first trains operated by electricity being run over the Third avenue line in 1901. It had already come into use on the elevated railways in Brooklyn. The number of passengers carried over the system in 1904 averaged 700,000 daily. The system went under lease to a corporation named the Interborough Railway Company, chartered 6 May 1902.