The Coney Island Elevated Railway was the very first elevated line in Brooklyn. Although most of it ran above the ground, so that it qualified as an elevated railroad, it was not on the sort of structure generally thought of as an "el." It opened in 1881 running generally along the route of today's Brighton Line for the one mile from the Brighton Beach Hotel to a terminal just west of the Culver Terminal (approximately between today's Brighton Beach and West 8th Street). It used iron bridges at road crossings, and wooden pilings and columns elsewhere. There were no intermediate stations on this line, which ran seasonally in the summertime only. In 1886, the Coney Island Elevated was reorganized as the Sea View Railroad; it was purchased by the BRT in 1897. The BRT electrified the line, the