Another method of collecting the current was tried soon afterwards and formed the direct forerunner of the electric tramway on the now standard 'overhead' system. The disadvantage of the third rail system is that it involves an exposed 'live' conductor close to the ground. It is therefore quite unsuited for use on streets. Consequently the next step towards the electric tramway was to carry the electrical conductors overhead by supporting them on poles erected at the side of the track. The first installation of this kind was laid down at the Paris Exhibition of 1881. In that case the conductor was an iron tube with a slot along its lower side; and inside the tube was a 'boat' which slid along and was connected to the car by means of a flexible wire. A second tube, also with a boat and connecting wire, was provided to carry the return current. We shall see later how this arrangement evolved into the familiar 'trolley' system.
The mention of a slotted tube recalls the atmospheric system and, in so doing, emphasises the superiority of the electric system in simplicity, flexibility, reliability, and economy. Brunel's faith in the advantages of stationary engines and the transmission of power therefrom to moving trains would have been justified by the event if the pneumatic system of power transmission had been as practicable as the electric system. But there is an obvious contrast between the huge pipe of the atmospheric railway, with its impossible 'longitudinal valve,' and the small tube of the first overhead electric line or the third rail of the first electric railway. There is also a pathetic contrast between the prolonged struggles which Brunel and the inventors of the atmospheric system underwent before they were forced to acknowledge failure, and the rapid ease with which electric traction entered into its kingdom when the commercial dynamo and motor were first produced. The intrinsic difficulties which electric traction engineers had to meet were not serious. Designers passed, step by step, from the model electric railway at the Berlin Exhibition to public lines on a larger scale, and from the model electric overhead tramway to the 'street railway' or tramway which gradually supplanted the horse tramway. Each step consisted in an extension of the distance covered and an increase in the power required, coincident with a gradual improvement in the details of motors, dynamos, and transmission equipment.