« March 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
January 30, 2007
Tuesday Memories - Gentilly and Elysian Fields, 1938
Finding neat photos of New Orleans' past is an easy thing to do, but it's not often that a photo totally blows me away. This one did, because this is a corner that's I've spent a lot of time either standing on or driving through. This is a shot of Elysian Fields, at Gentilly Road, looking north towards the lake. That's the Hebrew Rest cemetery on the left, and a few houses that are long gone now, having been replaced with commercial buildings and Brother Martin High School.
Elysian Fields Avenue doesn't even exist yet as a paved street yet. Keep in mind that the main route out to the lake via Gentilly was Franklin Avenue. That's where the "Smokey Mary" excursion train ran, from downtown to Milneburg.
Posted by YatPundit at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2007
Feature Photo - 1000s on St. Claude
NOPSI 1003, inbound on St. Claude Avenue at Mandeville St. The 1000 series ran on St. Claude from 1935 until the line's conversion to trackless trolleys in1949. The 1000s were the pinnacle of Perley Thomas' arch-roof design. They were built by both the St. Louis Car Co. and the Perley A. Thomas Company in 1928-1929. The 1000s had four high-performance motors, two more than the 800s and 900s.
The repairs taking place on St. Claude are most likely being done by a WPA-sponsored work crew. You can't help but wonder how many of them occasionally ran into that soda fountain on the corner for a break!
Posted by YatPundit at 09:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2007
San Francisco Photos...
OK, they're not New Orleans streetcars, but they're still fun to ride when I'm out here. Here are a few photos from a ride on the "F" line:
PCC 1062 (Louisville, KY), turning off of Beach Street at the end of the "F" line. I got on this one and rode down to the Ferry Terminal.
While walking around in the general vicinity of the Ferry Terminal on the Embarcadero, PCC 1010, one of the "Magic Carpets" passed going the other way. I keep telling folks at home that we should buy one or two of these double-ended PCCs and rent them to movie production companies filming in New Orleans. "Double-ended" means they can change direction, like the Perley Thomas cars that regularly run on Canal and Riverfront.
Milan tram 1845 came by after a few minutes, so I continued my ride on the "F" line. Further down Market, I got off of 1845 and took PCC 1055 back down to the Fisherman's Wharf area, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good photo of that streetcar. While walking around, however, I did take an obligatory cable car photo:
Posted by YatPundit at 08:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2007
Feature Photo: Monorail, 1950s Style
One of the proposals being floated in post-K New Orleans is the idea of "high speed rail" lines connecting anything from downtown to the airport, possibly going out as far as Baton Rouge. The 2000-series Von Dullen cars would actually do nicely for an express line to the airport, since they can do a good speed and their classic looks fit the city well, but the elevated monorail concept has also come up. But this isn't the first time New Orleans has considered a monorail.
During the post-WWII period, the mayor of New Orleans was deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison. Coming on the heels of the war and the old-style politics of the Maestri administration, Morrison was widely regarded as a progressive and a reformer. Chep's big vision was to make New Orleans essentially what Miami is now--the gateway to Central and South America. He worked hard at "internationalizing" New Orleans, even though most locals, rich, poor, black, and white, weren't all that interested.
Still, Morrison pressed forward with his ideas, particularly in the area of modernizing the city's infrastructure. Morrison made the concept of a single passenger railroad station a reality (there were five of them before the Union Passenger Termainal on Loyola Avenue was built). He invested in a major repair and beautification program for Canal Street in the 1950s. And, sadly, it was Morrison and his people who allowed NOPSI to replace the remaining post-war streetcar lines with buses, finally to the point where even the Canal streetcar line was discontinued.
Not all of Morrison's ideas were accepted, however. When the federal government began the planning for the Interstate Highway System, Morrison was a supporter of the "riverfront expressway" concept, which would have ruined the French Quarter. Morrison was less interested with the past than the future, though. One of the ultra-modern concepts proposed by Morrison was a "monorail" train that would originate at the Union Passenger Terminal and end at Moisant Field in Kenner, Louisiana. The cost was prohibitive, however--elevated piers and track aren't cheap. The artist's conception above was developed in 1959. Monorails have evolved conceptually since the late 50s into the trains we see at DisneyLand/World and many airports across the world.
Posted by YatPundit at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2007
Feature Photo: Canal Station, 1963
800- and 900-series Perley Thomas streetcars on the outside tracks at Canal Station in 1963. These streetcars are parked on the outside storage tracks on the south side of the station (closer to White Street, to the right of the station if you're standing on Canal looking at it.) You can see the tracks in this aerial view of Canal Station.
Canal Station has always been a hotbed of activity, from the time the when the station included mule barns to now, where the A. Philip Randolph SIS facility is RTA's primary bus maintenance facility. Prior to the storm, Randolph was the home base of the red streetcars, the 2000 Von Dullens and the 400 Riverfronts. The 900s operating on the Canal/Riverfront hybrid line since the storm are now housed in the car barn behind the SIS facility.
When streetcars dominated the streets of the city, these six tracks were filled with off-duty cars from end-to-end. Even in 1963, when operations had been scaled down to just the Canal and St. Charles lines, they're still almost half-full. That's how many streetcars are required to handle the volume of riders on the city's main street.
After the Canal line was converted to bus operations in 1964, the outdoor tracks were ripped up and that section of the station was paved over and used as a bus parking lot.
I'm not sure about the source of this photo. I found it for sale on eBay, and unfortunately, lost the auction. If anyone knows more about it, please drop me a line.
Posted by YatPundit at 06:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 12, 2007
Just a bit of nostalgia...
CDM delivery/work truck from 1931. Photo from the New Orleans Public Library.
Posted by YatPundit at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 09, 2007
Feature Photo: Bobtail on Esplanade
A mule-drawn "bobtail" car, turning off of Decatur for its outbound run up Esplanade Avenue. This is car #136 of the New Orleans City Railroad, operating either on their "French Market," "Esplanade and French Market," or "Levee and French Market" line.
The "bobtail" cars, manufactured by the John Stephenson Car Company of New York, were operated by all of the street railway companies prior to electrification. The NOCRR cars operating along Decatur Street and Esplanade Avenues were painted red and yellow. This is one of the reasons RTA chose red for the revival of the Riverfront line in 1988.Unlike other parts of the country, streetcar operators in New Orleans used mules to pull their cars rather than horses. Mules can work longer shifts in the heat and humidity of New Orleans' summer.
Dating photos with bobtail cars can be problematical, since they started operation in the 1860s and continued to run until electrification in the 1890s. The electric pole in front of the US Mint building narrows it down to the 1890s. The building in the background as the streetcar rounds the corner is the United States Mint located in New Orleans. Now referred to by locals as the "Old US Mint."
Posted by YatPundit at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 06, 2007
Twelfth Night!
The Carnival season officially begins on the Twelfth Day of Christmas. The private side of Carnival's kickoff are all the King Cakes that will be consumed starting today. The public side of Twelfth Night is a streetcar event, the annual ride tonight of the Phunny Phorty Phellows. The PPP usually would ride the St. Charles line on two chartered streetcars, but this year they'll be on the Canal hybrid line.
Additionally, there's a parade tonight! The Krewe of Zeus marks their 50th anniversery by rolling down their original Metairie Road route. That route brings a lot of great childhood memories back for me. My dad was very active in American Legion Post 175. Their hall is on Metairie Road, and they'd always erect a small reviewing stand out front for the kids. We used to have so much fun there.
The more formal side of Twelfth Night will be celebrated at the bal masque of the Twelfth Night Revelers. Carnival krewes have events year-round these days, but the formal balls usually start on January 6th.
Happy Twelfth Night!
Posted by YatPundit at 02:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2007
Water main break causes service outage...
The hybrid Canal Streetcar line was out of service last week, from Tuesday to Saturday. A water pipe broke at Canal and Gayoso Streets, which is right in front of the Randolph SIS facility (the location of the car barn on Canal Street). Canal and Gayoso is right where the streetcar tracks enter the Randolph facility, as you can see on our aerial photo.
RTA switched the Canal line from streetcar to bus service until the pipe was repaired on Saturday. The 900s are back rolling.
Posted by YatPundit at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 01, 2007
Personal Update...
I didn't want to put a lot of personal stuff in the weekly streetcar newsletter, mainly because it's got a high circulation. Still, I thought an explanation of why I stopped producing the newsletter last February and am returning to it now warranted an explanation.
This hasn't been the easiest of years for any of us, to say the least. When I was producing the newsletter, I was trying to figure out how to resurrect my computer training business in a world where everyone was more concerned about remediating mold in their houses. About that time, I got an offer to do training for two companies, Hitachi Data Systems and EMC Corporation. The stuff I teach is on the high-end side (local and remote replication on large-frame storage systems). It's not the kind of stuff I can teach to folks who live in metro New Orleans, for a number of reasons. That meant I had to go on the road between two and four months a week. While that was great for our household income, it meant I wasn't around the area to take pictures and such. The sad part of that dilemma was that there was so little progress in terms of the restoration of the streetcar lines that it was difficult to come up come up with things to talk about.
The lack of progress really did a number on me. You see, I was more of a bus kid than a streetcar kid growing up. Carter-Lake Vista-Lakeshore-Veterans. That was my way home from Brother Martin High School to Metairie. Either that or Broad-Canal-Veterans. Driving through Lakeview and Gentilly to bring my boy to school each day last spring was painful. Seeing the amount of destruction in Gentilly just broke my heart. While the whining of hardcore Republican residents of Lakeview about how the Bush administration was screwing them was bittersweet irony, it still broke my heart to see the non-existent recovery of both neighborhoods.
So, I did my best to separate myself from the nightmare, and that's why the newsletter went on hiatus. The return of control of Congress to the Democrats is encouraging for New Orleans, in spite of the side show that is William Jefferson. Combine that with finally shaking off most of my post-storm funk and it's time to get back to business. Oh, and there's the story about the restaurants that my friiends and I bought in Metairie and Kenner in 2006, but we'll get there... :-)
And so we shall.
Posted by YatPundit at 06:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Feature Photo: Hope for the New Year
Tradition has it that you always want to start the new year off on a positive note. Since seeing the "red ladies" back on Canal and the Riverfront this year would be a huge positive for the city, here's a shot of Carrollton Cars 458 and 463, along with Von Dullen car 2019 at the French Market from 2004.
Both the 400s and the 2000s sustained water damage from the canal breaches in the aftermath of the storm. In September, the 400s were moved by truck from Randolph to Carrollton, and work has begun on rebuilding them. FEMA has given RTA $21.6 million to repair our streetcars. RTA estimates that it will cost between $800K and $1million apiece to get them back on the street. Even the 400s require extensive repairs because of the wheelchair lifts in the cars.
The 2000-series Von Dullen cars are more complicated. While they have the arched roof of the 900s and 400s, the internals of the 2000s have more in common with modern Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) like you see in San Diego or Baltimore. The flooding really messed up their electronics as well as the propulsion and trucks. RTA is working with Brookville to work out a plan of attack for their repair. It'll take longer for the 2000s to return to Canal, but hopefully the 400s will be operational this year.
Happy New Year!
Posted by YatPundit at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack