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October 31, 2005

Feature Photo: 30-October-2005

The St. Charles Avenue Bus:

Buses have been pressed into service at various times during the history of the St. Charles Streetcar line, usually when there has been a wreck on the line, or when major repairs disrupt streetcar service. Hurricane Katrina damaged enough of the catenary wires and poles on St. Charles that the 900-series Perley Thomas streetcars have to stay in the barn for now. The old green streetcars weathered the storm just fine, but the massive damage to the city done by the storms means that restoring streetcar service is not a very high priority for either RTA or city government.

So, we've got bus service on the St. Charles Line for the forseeable future. This is a shot of the only bus running on the line last week, at the end of the line at S. Carrollton and Claiborne Avenues.

Here's the bus making the turn through Lee Circle, on an outbound run to Palmer Park.

Another shot of the St. Charles bus at Palmer Park.

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October 27, 2005

Carrollton Station

One of the oldest streetcar barns in the country, Carrollton Station on Willow Street fared the storm pretty well:

The station, pretty much buttoned up. With those big doors pulled down and no flood waters in the Uptown area, the historic Perley Thomas 900-series streetcars were well protected from the storm. The wind was pretty intense in this area, though. Several of the big, roll-down doors on the back (Jeannette St.) side of the station were blown inward, off of their tracks.

A quick peek inside the station, before a security guard shooed me away. Yes, that's a San Francisco cable car in the barn. RTA got that car in exchange for a Perley Thomas car that was sent out to Market Street Railway, in a trade that's up there with the Cubs giving up Greg Maddux in terms of lop-sided.

Posted by YatPundit at 12:07 AM | TrackBack

October 26, 2005

St. Charles Avenue

The situation on the St. Charles Line is opposite that of Canal Street. On Canal, the line is pretty much OK, with the neutral ground needing some cleaning, track clearing, and minor electrical work. The "Red Ladies" are a mess, though, since most of them got flooded.

On St. Charles, the Carrollton Station car barn protected the 80+ year old 900-series streetcars, but the high winds of the storm caused a good bit of damage on the line itself.

St. Charles Avenue at Amelia Street. (Rice fans will remember Amelia Street as the home of one of the branches of the Mayfair family from Anne's "witch" novels.) This tree hanging on the trolley wires is one of the more dramatic examples of the damage along the line.

A few blocks up the street. This scene is typical of most of the line--debris and dirt on the tracks, wires down here and there, trees and branches blocking the poles.

pre-Katrina track repairs at St. Charles and Elenore have been abandoned for the time being.

One small sign of the return to normalcy--the Roman Candy wagon, out on the street and open for business.

Posted by YatPundit at 11:55 PM | TrackBack

Randolph SIS

I didn't get really good shots of Randolph. They were moving a bunch of buses around, and even though the security gate wasn't manned, I didn't want to go in without permission.

Looking in from the Bienville Street entrance. Three 2000-series and one 400-series streetcars are visible in the barn. It appears that the neighborhood got 4'-6' of water, which means all of the cars in the barn would have been flooded. Flooding to that extent means a lot of damage to the Brookville and Tatra trucks, as well as the electrical systems in general.

This PT Cruiser is parked on Bienville St., right outside the Randolph wall. The water line on the car goes up to the top of the tail lights.

Two homes across the street from Randolph on Bienville. You can see the water line on the houses, and it appears that the cars were almost completely covered. Now, visualize the streetcars sitting in that much water.

Posted by YatPundit at 11:39 PM | TrackBack

Canal Street post-Katrina

When I have time, I do a "streetcar run" where I run into town on I-10, get off at City Park Ave., and run down Canal Street to St. Charles Ave. From there I turn onto St. Charles, head uptown, then back up Carrollton Avenue to Canal Street. This is a good way for me to check out both of the "non-tourist" streetcar lines as well as the two car barns.

I did this run today, the first time since the storm hit. Here's some shots of Canal Street:

Canal at Pierce, looking lakebound. This is one block before Carrollton Avenue. This is a typical scene of Canal Street in Mid-City.

Canal at Pierce, looking riverbound. Most of the catenary wire on Canal is OK from the cemeteries to St. Charles, with just minor damage. The track has been neglected, as can be seen above, but that won't be too difficult to fix. Most of the palm trees in the neutral ground survived OK; they were anchored by wires to help them take root, and those wires held a lot of them down.

Robert's Supermarket, Canal and Carrollton. This debris pile is typical of homes and businesses from Mid-City out to Metairie. It doesn't matter if a building or home got six inches or two feet of water, they still cut the walls out to 4' up, so the frame can be treated for mold. In the businesses that flooded, a lot of the furniture and fixtures also get tossed out. Robert's obviously got some bad wind damage as well as water. I feel bad for Marc Robert; his store in Metairie got beat up by wind pretty bad, and his store in Lakeview got 8'-10' of water in it. It's a shame, they're good stores.

The smell in the neighborhood is awful. The garbage and debris has piled up so much it's really become nasty. When I got out to take these photos, the smell nearly knocked me down.

Posted by YatPundit at 11:15 PM | TrackBack

Converting the Website...

I'm in the process of converting the website to Movable Type, please bear with me.

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