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'Streetcars in New Orleans' have been an integral part of the city's public transportation network since the first half of the 19th century. The longest of New Orleans' streetcar lines, the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar, is the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world, according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Today, the streetcars are operated by the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA).

There are currently three operating streetcar lines in New Orleans: The St. Charles Avenue Line, the Riverfront Line, and the Canal Street Line. The St. Charles Avenue Line is the only line that has operated continuously throughout New Orleans' streetcar history (though service was interrupted after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and resumed only in part in December 2006, as noted below). All other lines, were bustituted in the period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s; preservationists were unable to save the streetcars on Canal Street, but were able to convince the city government to protect the St. Charles Avenue Line by granting it historic landmark status. In the later 20th century, trends began to favor rail transit again. A short Riverfront Line started service in 1988, and service returned to Canal Street in 2004, 40 years after it had been shut down.
The wide destruction wrought on the city by Hurricane Katrina in September 2005 knocked all three lines out of operation and damaged many of the streetcars. Service on a portion of the Canal Street line was restored in December of that year, with the remainder of the line and the Riverfront line returning to service in early 2006. As of August 2007, temporary buses are still running on the St. Charles line, though service has been restored to part of the line.

Contents

Current lines

Speed of the lines

St. Charles Avenue Line

History of the line

Further reading

Riverfront Line

Canal Street Line

Further reading

History

Hurricane Katrina

Historic lines

Current rolling stock

References

External links

Current lines

Speed of the lines

The lines operate at a heritage line, or excursion, speed. That is, they do not exceed speeds of 10 miles per hour, even though they follow reserved right of ways.

St. Charles Avenue Line

The 'Saint Charles Avenue Line' starts uptown, at South Carrollton Avenue and South Claiborne Avenue. It runs on South Carrollton Avenue through the Carrollton neighborhood towards the Mississippi River, then near the river levee turns on to Saint Charles Avenue. It proceeds past entrances to Audubon Park, Tulane University and Loyola University New Orleans, continues through Uptown New Orleans including the Garden District, and ends at Canal Street in the New Orleans Central Business District at the edge of the French Quarter, a distance of about fifteen miles. Officially the St. Charles Avenue Line is designated as 'Route 12.'

History of the line

Planing for the line began in 1831, and work began as the "New Orleans and Carrollton Rail Road" in February 1833, the second railway in Greater New Orleans after the Pontchartrain Rail Road. Service began on September 26, 1835, originally without a dedicated right-of-way (it ran on public streets) although one was eventually established in the ''neutral ground'' (the median). Passenger and freight cars were hauled by steam locomotive. As the area along the line became more urbanized, objections to the soot and noise produced by the locomotive increased, and transport was switched to cars were powered by horses and mules. For decades in the late 19th century, desire for a mode of transit more swift and powerful than horses but without the disruptive effects of locomotives resulted in a number of systems being tried out. Experimental systems included overhead cables propulsion (with a cable clamp patented by P.G.T. Beauregard in 1869 later being adapted for the San Francisco cable car system), and several innovative designs by Dr. Emile Lamm, including ammonia engines, a "Chlorine of Calcium Engine", and most successfully the Lamm Fireless Engine which not only propelled pairs of cars along the line in the 1880s but was adapted by the street railways of Paris. While the city's first experiments with electric powered cars was made in 1884 (in conjunction with the World Cotton Centennial World's Fair), electric streetcars were not considered sufficiently perfected for widespread use until the following decade, and the line was electrified February 1, 1893.
In 1922 the New Orleans & Carrollton Rail Road was sold to New Orleans Public Service Incorporated ("NOPSI"), which consolidated the city's various streetcar lines and electrical production.
In 1972 automatic fareboxes were introduced, and the job of a separate conductor was eliminated from streetcars.
The line still has one of the 1890s vintage cars in running condition, although it is not used for regular passenger service. The bulk of the line's cars date from the 1920s.

Further reading

★ The Saint Charles Streetcar -- or the history of The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad, by James Gilbeau, 3rd edition 1992, Louisiana Landmarks Society

Riverfront Line

The 'Riverfront Line' was built along a section of the city's Mississippi River banks, in an area with many amenities catering to tourists. It opened August 14, 1988, the first new streetcar route to be unveiled in New Orleans in 62 years. The line is the city's shortest, running 2 miles from Thalia Street at the upper end of the New Orleans Convention Center to the downriver (far) end of the French Quarter at the foot of Esplanade Avenue. Unlike the other two lines, it travels on an exclusive right of way, along the River levee beside New Orleans Belt Railway tracks. Officially the Riverfront Line is designated 'Route 2.'
Some old trams formerly running along the Canal line until the 1960s were repurchased and refurbished, with additional cars imported from Australia. It was the city's first streetcar line to offer handicapped access; the historic landmark status of the Saint Charles route prevented the modification of the cars on that line.

Canal Street Line

The Canal Streetcar route dated back to 1861. Discontinued and substituted by buses on May 30, 1964 over the protests of preservationists, the Canal streetcar line reopened April 18, 2004, almost 40 years later.
The 'Canal Street Streetcar,' in its reconception, now includes two lines. The main line, named after the original '"Cemeteries"' line (and designated as 'Route 42'), travels a direct route from the foot of Canal St. at the Mississippi River to its head 3 miles inland. For much of its history, this area constituted the northern (lakeside) boundary of the city, which explains the density of cemeteries, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish, in this area. The other, designated '"City Park"' (designated as 'Route 45'), begins at the French Market at the foot of Esplanade and Elysian Fields Avenues, sharing trackage with the Riverfront Line before turning onto Canal Street for most of its length. It diverges from the main trackage at Carrollton Avenue, where it turns on to N. Carrollton Avenue, ending at Beauregard Circle, at Esplanade Avenue and Bayou St. John, near the entrance of the New Orleans Museum of Art and within easy walking distance of the New Orleans Fairgrounds, site of the yearly Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Further reading

★ New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line by Edward J. Branley, Arcadia Publishing

History

In 1902, there was protest when the Louisiana legislature mandated that public transportation must enforce racial segregation. At first this was objected to by both white and black riders as an inconvenience, and by the streetcar companies on grounds of both added expense and the difficulties of determining the racial background of some New Orleanians.
In 1929, there was a wide spread strike by transit workers demanding better pay which was widely supported by much of the public. Sandwiches on baguettes were given to the "poor boys" on strike, said to be the origin of the local name of "po' boy" sandwiches. The same year, the gauge of the streetcar tracks was converted to 5 ft 2½ in (1588 mm) from 4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge).
During World War II, a few old mule drawn cars were returned to service on a few shorter lines as an energy saving measure. After the war, as with much of the United States, many streetcar lines were replaced with buses.

Hurricane Katrina

The area through which the St. Charles Avenue Line travelled fared comparatively well in Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact on New Orleans at the end of August 2005, with moderate flooding only of the two ends of the line at Claiborne Avenue and at Canal Street. However, wind damage and falling trees took out many sections of catenary along St. Charles Avenue, and vehicles parked on the neutral ground over the inactive tracks have degraded parts of the right-of-way. At the start of October 2005, as this part of town started being repopulated, bus service began running on the St. Charles line.
The section running from Carondelet Street to Lee Circle in the Central Business District was restored December 19 2006 at 10:30am Central time. NORTA expects to restore the remainder of the line to service in two stages, with streetcars running upriver to Napoleon Avenue by late summer 2007 and service on the rest of the line to Claiborne Avenue to be restored in the spring of 2008.[1] The time is needed to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and to perform other maintenance and upgrades to the lines that was scheduled before the hurricane; leaving the line shut down and electrical system unpowered will allow the upgrades to be performed more safely and easily.
Perhaps more serious was the effect on the system's rolling stock. The vintage green streetcars rode out the storm in the sealed barn in a portion of Old Carrollton that didn't flood, and are undamaged. However, the newer red cars were in a different barn that unfortunately ''did'' flood, and all of them were rendered inoperable; current estimates are each car will cost between $800,000 and $1,000,000 to restore. In December 2006, NORTA received a $46 million grant to help pay for the car restoration efforts; the first restored car is expected to be placed in service during the summer of 2007.[2]

Service on the Canal Street Line was restored in December 2005, with several historic St. Charles line green cars transferred to serve there while the flood-damaged red cars are being repaired. The eventual reopening of all lines is a major priority for the city as it rebuilds.

Historic lines

In the mid 19th to early 20th century, the city had dozens of lines, including:

★ Poydras-Magazine (1835-1836) - Though short-lived, this was the first true streetcar line to begin operation in New Orleans, having opened the first week of January 1835.

★ Jackson Ave. (1835-1947) - This long-running line also opened before the St. Charles line, on January 13, 1835.

★ Louisiana Ave. (1850-1878, 1913-1934)

★ Napoleon Ave. (1850-1953) - From 1915-1934 this was the longest streetcar line in New Orleans, its routing as follows: beginning at the foot of Napoleon Ave. (at Tchoupitoulas St.), travelling the full-length of Napoleon Ave., then right onto Broad, left onto Washington Ave., right onto S. Carrollton Ave., left onto Pontchartrain Blvd. (this would now be impossible due to the presence of the Pontchartrain Expressway / I-10), left onto Metairie Road, then zig-zagging through several Old Metairie streets to a terminus at Cypress St. and Shrewsbury Rd. (now Severn Ave.)

★ Esplanade Ave. (1861-1901) - This was the first streetcar line to traverse the "back-of-town" section of New Orleans, running all the way out Esplanade Ave. to Bayou St. John in its original routing. From 1901-1934 the Canal and Esplanade lines operated in a loop as the Canal-Esplanade Belt.

★ Magazine St. (1861-1948) - Its longest routing, in the 1910s, took it all the way from downtown, up Magazine and Broadway to S. Claiborne Ave.

★ Prytania St. (1861-1932)

★ Bayou Bridge and City Park (1861-1900, route absorbed into Esplanade line) - This early line ran the full length of the present-day City Park Ave. (then called Metairie Rd.)

★ Tchoupitoulas St. (1866-1929) - This early riverfront line once ran the full-length of Tchoupitoulas St. from downtown to Audubon Park.

★ N. Claiborne Ave. (1868-1934)

★ Tulane Ave. (originally Canal & Common) (1871-1964) - From 1900-1954 the St. Charles and Tulane lines operated in a loop as the St. Charles-Tulane Belt, taking passengers past the beautiful homes on St. Charles Ave., up S. Carrollton Ave. past the St. Charles Line's present termination at S. Claiborne Ave., across the New Basin Canal (now the Pontchartrain Expressway), turning at the former Pelican Stadium onto Tulane Ave. and back downtown.

★ Broad St. (originally Canal, Dumaine & Fair Grounds) (1874-1932)

★ West End (1876-1950) - This line is still fondly remembered for its jaunty ride through the grassy right-of-way along the New Basin Canal to the popular West End area on Lake Pontchartrain.

★ Spanish Fort (1911-1932)

★ S. Claiborne Ave. (1915-1953)

★ Desire St. (1920-1948) - This line was immortalized in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire. The line was converted to buses in 1948. Various proposals to revive the streetcar line have been discussed in recent years; a draft environmental impact statement from December 2002 is online at the NORTA website.

★ Freret St. (1924-1946)

★ St. Claude Ave. (1926-1949) - This and a new Gentilly line were the last two streetcar lines to open in New Orleans (not counting the more recent Riverfront line); resurrection being considered as new "Desire" line.

★ Orleans/Kenner interurban (or O.K. Line) - This line operated between 1915-1931 and connected New Orleans to Kenner. The line ran between the intersection of Rampart and Canal in New Orleans and followed the route of the present-day Jefferson Hwy. to Williams Blvd. in Kenner.[3]

Current rolling stock

The St. Charles Avenue Line has traditionally used streetcars of the type that were common all over the United States in the early parts of the 20th century. Most of the streetcars that were running on this line before Katrina were Perley Thomas cars dating from the 1920s. One 1890s vintage streetcar is still in running condition; it is used for maintenance and special uses. Unlike most North American cities with streetcar systems, New Orleans never adopted PCC cars in the 1930s or 1940s, and never traded in older streetcars for modern light rail vehicles in the later 20th century.
In the Carrollton neighborhood, the RTA has a streetcar barn where the streetcars of the city's lines are stored and maintained. The shop there has become adept at duplicating any part needed for the vintage cars.
With the addition of the two new lines, more vehicles were needed for the system. The RTA's shops converted some modern streetcars into near duplicates in appearance of the older cars, and built a number of others from scratch. These new cars can be distinguished from the vintage vehicles by their bright red color; unlike the older cars, they are air conditioned and ADA-compliant.
Before Hurricane Katrina, the historic cars ran exclusively on the St. Charles Avenue Line, and the newer cars on the other two lines. However, in the wake of hurricane damage to both the tracks and the cars, such vehicles and infrastructure as are functional run where possible until full repairs can be made.

References

★ U.S. Urban Rail Transit Lines Opened From 1980 (PDF)

★ NYCSubway.org's New Orleans pages

★ Hennick, L., & Charlton E. (1955) ''Street Railways of New Orleans''

External links

★ New Orleans Regional Transit Authority

★ New Orleans Streetcar Guide