RTA brought Perley Thomas streetcar #930 from Carrollton Station to Canal and St. Charles this morning to test the Canal trackage and wiring. I watched as they ran 930 from St. Charles to the foot of Canal, switched to the outbound track, then ran down to the crossover at Liberty. I had to get on with my day from there, but it appears that the test was a success, at least to that point.
930 waiting for the media event to be choreographed:
From the uptown side of the street:
more photos follow...
Operator's station:
trucks:
at the foot of Canal, switched to the outbound track:
Passing me by at the foot of Canal:
Approaching Dauphine on the outbound run:
At Liberty, preparing to switch back to the inbound track:
Monday, December 12, 2005
Dear Edward,
thanks for sharing with us your experience of seeing the first streetcar downtown since the hurricane. Your little digital camera does well with video, which I enjoyed. Keep up your nice work of chronicling the recovery of your fabulous city and its great streetcars.
I look forward to reading your weekly newsletters.
Eric
p.s. Do you know how the RTA got 930 downtown? Did they tow it over the St.Charles trackage or truck it downtown on a low-loader flat-bed? If RTA towed 930 all the way down St. Charles, they must have had to clear away tons of tree branches and other debris. From reading the NOLA.com forums, I learned that the St. Charles Avenue neutral ground was also covered with hundreds upon hundreds of temporary hand-made signs advertising reopenings of businesses, etc.
Your fellow New Orleanian Alan Drake said last week that the RTA was planning to use Silk Road, a trucking firm specializing in hauling rail cars, to move a streetcar.
Thanks for posting the pictures of 930 on Canal. It's a beautiful sight.
930 was pulled onto Canal by a white pickup truck. I'll put more details in another post.
Y'all will be pleased to know 930 made the trip on her own wheels. RTA first tried to tow her with a dump truck, but then used a large pickup to complete the job. There are a few pictures of the move posted on a Train-sim forum at the URL below. Congratulations to all for proving yet another dire prediction wrong. -Phil
http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=12&topic_id=4853&mesg_id=4853&page=