New Orleans Streetcars Up and Running

Nov. 12, 2007 — -- To Mike Saccoliti, the St. Charles Avenue streetcar is more than just a tourist draw. It's a way to get from the French Quarter to the Columns Hotel for a bloody mary. Or to Tipitina's for a live jazz show. Or his friend's house for a crawfish boil. Seeing the streetcar — knocked out of service by Hurricane Katrina — partially back in operation signals a giant stride toward normalcy here, said Saccoliti, 49, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who has been visiting New Orleans since 1988.

"It's a sign that stuff's happening," he said.

The historic St. Charles Avenue streetcar, as much a symbol of this city as jazz and blackened redfish, returned to service at 5:27 a.m. Sunday, two years, two months and 13 days after being battered offline by Katrina. Residents and tourists alike heralded the return of the olive-green, 1920s-era Perley Thomas streetcars as a major step toward recovery.

On Saturday, a high school marching band blasted When the Saints Go Marching In and city leaders praised the line's return just before four inaugural streetcars pushed off toward downtown. Onlookers honked car horns, banged instruments, cheered and waved their drinks in a Mardi Gras-like atmosphere as the first streetcars rumbled down St. Charles Avenue. Businesses welcomed back the streetcars with oversized banners.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: New Orleans | Katrina | St. Charles | RTA | Rosalind Cook "It's huge," said City Council member Stacey Head. "This returns a sense of normalcy to New Orleanians. It's part of what you think about when you think about this city."

Part of the appeal is its history. The St. Charles Avenue line, stretching 6½ miles down the broad, oak-lined residential boulevard, first opened to the public in 1835, making it one of the oldest continuously running trolley systems in the world, said Wil Mullet, rail superintendent for the Regional Transit Authority (RTA).

The line began with mule-pulled streetcars, he said. It briefly upgraded to steam-engine cars but returned to the mule cars when female passengers complained of soot from the engine soiling their dresses. The line went electric in 1893 and the Perley Thomas cars, which still are used today, were added in 1923, Mullet said.

The entire line was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It's the oldest-surviving urban passenger rail system in the nation, according to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

"It's part of the heritage of New Orleans," Mullet said. "We knew the quicker we could get the St. Charles line back, the quicker we get back the heart of New Orleans."

All 35 historic Perley Thomas streetcars were stored at the Carrollton Transit Station in Uptown and survived Katrina's floods unscathed, said Fred Basha, RTA's director of infrastructure. But the storm tossed oak trees and branches on top of the overhead electrical wires and snapped transit poles like twigs, he said.

The city had planned an $11.8 million renovation to all of the city's streetcar lines prior to the storm, a project that was accelerated following Katrina, Basha said.

The line will initially run only about half of its 6½-mile stretch, from downtown to Napoleon Avenue, he said. The rest of the line is scheduled to reopen by early next year.

The streetcars are just as heavily used by residents going to and from work each day as by tourists. Just prior to Katrina, the citywide system ran 24 hours a day and served 120,000 passengers daily, Mullet said. That number has dropped to around 25,000 a day, but is expected to steadily rise as lines become operational, he said.

Since the streetcars suffered a two-year absence, the RTA has been running an informational campaign to remind motorists and joggers to look out for the rumbling cars when crossing the tracks, said Rosalind Cook, RTA spokeswoman.

Lawn signs with a picture of a streetcar are planted along the line's grassy median declaring: "We're back on track! Watch out for us!" Some residents have stolen the signs as souvenirs, Cook said.

Though the cars survived Katrina's floods, they now face a new threat: a lack of maintenance specialists trained in keeping the antiquated cars running, Mullet said. Only 33 of the 75 specialists returned after the storm, he said. And there is little money in the city's battered budget to hire more.

As those specialists retire, the pool of people to cross-train others in the field will dwindle, he said.

"There's not a book (where) you can go and learn about these streetcars," he said. "That technology has been handed down from generation to generation. Once these people go, that's it."