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!

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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.

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January 01, 2007

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!

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January 08, 2006

Feature Photo: Canal and Royal, c. 1895

Carnival Time at the turn of the 19th century. A parade is coming up Royal Street and turning lakebound on Canal Street. This was a common route for parades at the time. (Parades no longer go through the Quarter because the crowds are too large and pose a fire hazard to the old buildings.)

Electrifying Canal Street has brought a few changes to downtown. The wires all over make for busy photographs, to be sure. The higher poles are carrying power to the buildings, and the lower wires are for the streetcars.

The monument to Henry Clay, which occupied the entire Canal Street neutral ground between St. Charles Ave. and Royal Street has been cut back dramatically. The massive round base of the monument was an obstruction to streetcars. The old mule-drawn cars could easily maneuver around the statue, but the electric streetcars need to follow their wires, so the monument had to be altered. Even with the cutback of the base, the statue was still a problem for streetcars, because they barely had room to pass. In 1901, the city decided to remove the statue from Canal Street and relocate Mr. Clay to Lafayette Park, where he remains today.

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January 03, 2006

PPP

Just got a reply from Errol Laborde, and the Phunny Phorty Phellows will roll on Friday night, but their streetcars will take the hybrid Canal/Riverfront route rather than their traditional run from Carrollton Station to Lee Circle and back. They leave Canal and Crozat at 7pm.

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December 25, 2005

Feature Photo: Mr. Bingle

Jingle, Jangle Jingle,
Here comes Mr. Bingle...

Mr. Bingle is back on the Canal Line, well, sort of. The little snowman was the Christmas spokesman for the Maison Blanche department stores. For decades, moms would take their kids down to the Maison Blanche store on Canal and Dauphine Streets to see Mr. Bingle in the front window. In the late 1950s and early 60s, Mr. Bingle did TV commercials for the store on the before-school children's shows.

By the 1980s, Mr. Bingle was gone from both TV and the front window display on Canal Street. He was still the Christmas icon of the MB chain, and the store commissioned a giant Bingle that they hung on the front of the store. After Maison Blanche was acquired by Dillard's in the 1990s, that chain displayed the big Bingle on the side of their store at Lakeside Mall, but it just wasn't the same, and they eventually put the snowy guy into storage.

Dillard's brought the big Mr. Bingle out of storage last spring, this time to donate him to City Park. He was a bit worn out, but the park raised funds to restore him to make Mr. Bingle a part of the annual "Celebration in the Oaks" display. The storm wiped out a lot of the park's buildings, forcing the park to severely scale back the size of this year's display. "Celebration in the Oaks" usually has two components: one is a "driving tour" around the park where you drove around and viewed large light displays on the ground and in the trees. This component was cancelled this year because of the storm. The second segment, the "walking tour," went on as planned, with Mr. Bingle a part of it. The train garden is back operating as well, lit up for Christmas and sporting both classic green and 2000-series red model streetcars.

Mr. Bingle is a wonderful memory for many adults in the city, and an important symbol of our desire to bring our town back.

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December 23, 2005

Merry Christmas

Jingle, Jangle Jingle
Here comes Mister Bingle
With another message from Kris Kringle.

As we launch this Christmas season,
Maison Blanche brings Christmas pleasin.
Gifts galore for you and me.
Each of them from...MB!

Obviously this is an old photo. Mr. Bingle done quit at the Carlton Ritz because he can't reach da buffet. :-)

We're going to City Park tonight. I know that Dillard's donated the big Bingle to the park, but I don't know if he's up for this year. We'll see!

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December 22, 2005

Canal Street, 1915

Another postcard that's really too small of a scan to be a "feature photo." This is Canal Street around 1915. The photographer is standing on Canal, in between St. Charles and Carondelet. You can see the "new" MB building in the background.

The streetcars are "Palace" cars of the New Orleans City Railroad Company. At this time, the NOCRR ran the "Palace" cars and the New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad Company was beginning to try out a new semi-convertible from the St. Louis Car Company, designed by Mr. Perley A. Thomas.

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December 18, 2005

Feature Photo: Service Returns

Perley A. Thomas streetcar #930 at Canal and Liberty last week, in the first test run of a streetcar since the storm. Decorated for the holiday season, 930 was pulled by a pickup truck from Carrollton Station on the St. Charles tracks to Canal Street. There the streetcar was powered up and initially ran to the three-track terminal at the foot of Canal. Satisfied that the overhead was working properly, RTA allowed the streetcar to continue up Canal Street to Liberty Street, where it switched back to the inbound track.

The testing went so well that RTA approved limited operations of six Perley Thomas streetcars on a hybrid line consisting of the Riverfront trackage and a portion of the Canal line. Regular streetcar service returned to New Orleans this morning (18-December) at 7am, when 930 left the French Market terminal for Canal Street.

The 900s will run on the hybrid line at least through March of 2006 for free.

One of New Orleans' most important icons is back. Things are improving.

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December 12, 2005

930 on Canal - Video

This is my first attempt at video with this little digital camera, so be gentle:

930 heading inbound towards the foot of canal

930 heading outbound from the foot of canal

Continuation of outbound run

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Canal Street Line Test

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:

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November 27, 2005

PCC Cars in New Orleans

George mentioning that PCCs have never run in New Orleans reminds I've been meaning to post this diagram here for ages. This is from a 1960s dog-and-pony show presented by NOPSI to city government, trying to convince the powers-that-be of the time that discontinuing streetcar operations in New Orleans was the best route for the city. It was organized in a spiral-bound booklet as a page of text, then a photo or diagram, then another page of text, etc. I suspect that, had this been presented today rather than in 1960, it would have been a PowerPoint presentation.

In the presentation, this diagram followed some text which talked about how, by 1960, PCCs were aging and would not be a good replacement for the Perley Thomas cars. NOPSI also argued that, since most PCCs are single-ended, they'd have to make the following track modifications to accomodate single-sided cars.

Here's the diagram:

Now cropped by section. Top left, an indound-to-outbound turnaround from Canal onto Crozat, returning via Iberville and Treme.

Wye switch on N. Roman St.:

Another wye on David St., one block off Carrollton:

Cemeteries Terminal:

PCCs would turn right onto City Park Avenue outbound, right on Bienville St., right again onto N. Anthony, then left to merge back to the inbound track on Canal. The cars would have to go all the way to Bienville because Iberville does not go through to City Park Ave. Odd Fellows Rest and St. Patrick #2 cemeteries front City Park Ave.

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November 22, 2005

The 900s on Canal - Dangerous Precedent...

Perley A. Thomas Streetcar 914 on Canal Street (operating on the West End line)

The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) finds itself in a curious dilemma post-Katrina. Of the three streetcar lines in the city, two have minimal track/catenary damage but major streetcar damage. The third, the St. Charles line, has no streetcar damage whatsoever and serious track/catenary damage. Under most circumstances, the solution would be pretty simple: move the streetcars that run on St. Charles over to Canal Street and resume operations on Canal and on Riverfront.

There's one small catch to this plan: by law, the 900-series Perley A. Thomas streetcars that operate on St. Charles Avenue can't be moved from that line. Both the streetcars and the line itself are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Briefly, some background: The company operating streetcars in New Orleans from 1922 to 1983 was New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated (a division of the company that later became Entergy). In 1964, NOPSI, with approval from city government, discontinued streetcar operations on Canal Street, in favor of bus service. The deal was a compromise of sorts. NOPSI wanted to discontinue streetcars altogether, but preservationists, historians, and the residents of Uptown howled. The St. Charles Line is the oldest operating streetcar line in the country, and the citizens didn't want to lose it. Canal Street, on the other hand, is the transit hub of the city and the main street of downtown. Its streetcar right-of-way was ugly, unkept, and NOPSI pitched a serious marketing campaign to residents in Lakeview and Gentilly to entice them into accepting air-conditioned buses over the semi-convertible streetcars. In typical New Orleans fashion, a citizens group formed to try to save the Canal line, but it was too little, too late.

Preservationists got their compromise, and on May 31, 1964, the last streetcar to operate on Canal for almost forty years turned onto a preserved St. Charles line. Streetcar enthusiasts and uptown residents alike didn't trust NOPSI at all, and with good cause, so they continued to take steps to assure the continued preservation of the St. Charles line. Congress helped out in 1966 by creating the National Register, and by 1971, the St. Charles line was added to the Register.

A quick glance at the regulations governing the National Register reveal that it's set up to deal more with physical buildings, or neighborhoods of historic significance rather than moving property. The sections that deal with changes and revisions, as well as removal of properties from the NR appear to be written with the idea that, once a property is on the NR, very extraordinary circumstances have to happen for changes to be made.

The closest provision in the regulations I can find that's appropriate to post-Katrina New Orleans is the section on moving property:

(1) Properties listed in the National Register should be moved only when there is no feasible alternative for preservation. When a property is moved, every effort should be made to reestablish its historic orientation, immediate setting, and general environment.

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment involved with wanting to get the streetcars back up and running, we should all approach re-location of 900-series operation with great caution. For openers, the current situation doesn't fit the criteria set forth by the NR for changing location. The St. Charles line will indeed be repaired and restored to its pre-Katrina operations. It's not like St. Charles is vanishing and there's no place for the 900s to go.

It's important to remember that Canal Street is not a heritage trolley line. It's a major urban transit line. The 2000-series Von Dullen cars, in spite of their outward similarities to the 900-series cars, are modern LRVs. They're designed to handle the high volume of riders on Canal Street. They're ADA-compliant, with wheelchair lifts on both sides. In short, they're not your grandfather's streetcars.

The other issue with changing anything having to do with the St. Charles line is the notion of trust. There was a time when NOPSI couldn't be trusted to look out for the best interests of the city. They were a for-profit company, heavily regulated, and always at odds with city government. Replacing their management of transit with RTA was one of the best moves the city/state ever did. We should not forget that history, however. One of the reasons preservationists in the late 1960s took steps to lock the St. Charles line into stone via the NR was to make sure someone thirty or forty years down wouldn't mess with the character of the line. I personally believe that RTA's goals and motives are more than in the best interests of the city and the streetcars, but then again, a lot of people in Rome thought naming Caesar dictator was a good idea at first, too.

So, what to do? I suggest the following:

1. RTA should obtain a waiver from the NPS to operate the 900s on the Riverfront line. Riverfront was envisioned in the mid-80s as a tourist attraction. The original idea was to have a small excursion line that would make it easy for conventioneers attending shows in the Morial Convention Center to get to the French Quarter. In fact, until the Canal streetcars returned, Riverfront was not even integrated into the RTA system. You had to pay a separate fare to ride the 400-series cars, and no transfers were available. In spite of the overwhelming popularity of the Riverfront line and its subsequent expansion, the line's mission never changed. It's all about tourists. It will be a lot easier to obtain waivers from both the NPS and the DoJ to operate the 900s on Riverfront. Since disabled folks don't rely on Riverfront as essential transportation, RTA won't have to go another fifteen rounds with the DoJ over ADA-compliance.

2. RTA should acquire some double-ended PCC cars to restore operations on Canal until the Von Dullen cars can be repaired. Bus service on Canal will have to continue until a majority of the 2000-series are complete, but streetcars of any kind would be good as a tourism promotion. Riding a streetcar of any design from the CBD to Mid-City and City Park would be more fun than a bus. Perhaps a trolley museum or two could loan a couple to RTA.

3. RTA should be thinking out of the box, just like the rest of New Orleans. With all the re-building and re-thinking that's going on in New Orleans, expansion of streetcar use should be always be considered. The guys at Carrollton Station spent most of last year re-building car #29, the last Ford, Bacon & Davis single-truck streetcar. It wouldn't be that hard for them to build new replicas of that model. Single-truck streetcars wound through a lot of neighborhoods in the city until the 1930s. They're small and easily to maneuver. What better time to rip up streets to lay down streetcar track than when nobody's living there anyway? This is an idea off the top of my head while sitting here, but it's an example of the sort of brainstorming everyone should be doing.

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November 21, 2005

Feature Photo: Perley Thomas Streetcars on Canal Street

Perley A. Thomas streetcars 910 and 928, waiting to depart on the outbound leg of their current run on the Canal Street line, one afternoon in the early 1950s. These two cars have circled around Liberty Place and are now queued up in the 100 block of Canal. The billboard clock dominating the background reads 4:35. It's peak time for streetcar operation, as you can see three additional streetcars waiting behind these two. Canal Street had four-track operation. Streetcar 910 is on the outside, outbound track, which was normally used by the various lines that terminated their runs on Canal. Lines such as Desire, St. Charles and Magazine would run inbound to Canal Street via a one-way street. They would discharge passengers, turn onto Canal, run for a block or two on Canal, then turn back onto a side street to pick up passengers and begin their outbound run. 910 will merge onto the same track as 928 for the trip to the Cemeteries.

Four of the Union Metal Company light poles that line Canal Street in the CBD are visible behind the streetcars. These poles and their distinctive three lamps are still on Canal Street today, having survived a number of hurricanes since their installation in 1931. The long covered walkway in the right background of the photo is the pedestrian walkway that leads to the ferry landing. The railroad tracks of the New Orleans Public Belt RR Co. are right under that walkway, and it wasn't safe for pedestrians hurrying to catch the ferry across the river to be running across them.

The numbers on the right-hand side of the route sign indicate the order in which the streetcars left the barn that day. Streetcar 910 was the sixteenth that day, and 928 was the fifteenth. The streetcars used two-man operation at this time, employing both a motorman and a conductor. Passengers boarded at the rear and paid their fare to the conductor, exiting at the front. Since the conductor handled the money and could make change, exact change was not required. The fare at this time to ride a NOPSI bus or streetcar was seven cents.

The buildings on the left-hand side of the photo have all been torn down over the years, and now they are the location of One Canal Place, which is an office building, hotel, and shopping mall. Note the "JAX" sign in the left foreground, marking the entrance to a local watering hole and advertising Jax Beer. Jax Beer was made around the corner, at their brewery on Decatur Street. That building was empty for most of the 1970s, and was subsequently converted into a shopping area along the lines of Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco.

(Clicking the image takes you to a much higher-res version of the photo.)

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November 19, 2005

Canal Streetcar Damage

Photo Gallery from Da Paper. Still waiting word from BMC about how bad the damage is.

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November 13, 2005

Feature Photo: 2000-Series Construction

From 2003: Von Dullen car 2015, on Jeanette Street, behind Carrollton Station. The streetcar has painted and detailed, and now is being moved into the main car barn, where the interior and electrical system will be installed.

This scene will no doubt be repeated before the Von Dullen cars are returned to service on the Canal Line. With the car barn on Canal Street taking up to 2' of water, the trucks and motors were flooded, and the paint jobs on all the 2000-series and 400-series streetcars were damaged. It's unclear yet whether or not the motors were permanently damaged; they're built to get wet, of course, from rain and standing water on the tracks, but being totally immersed for days is not what the designers had in mind.

If the streetcars can return to Carrollton Station under their own power, they still have obstacles to hurdle--literally. The damage to catenary and electrical poles on St. Charles and Carrollton Avenues is extensive. That may mean the "red ladies" will have to be trucked back to Carrollton Station for repairs and a fresh coat of paint.

Photo shot with a Nikon EM and a 35-75mm lens.

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November 12, 2005

re-building the Von Dullen Streetcar Section...

I've just finished re-building the pages documenting the 2000-series construction. They needed to be converted to MovableType to fit with the site's new format. It's also appropriate to re-present these photos, because a lot of this work will have to be done again to repair the cars.

Repair of the 2000-series is going to be tricky, however, because the cars won't be able to get back uptown to Carrollton Station on their own. They'll most likely have to be trucked individually from Randolph back to Carrollton.

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2000-Series: Final Assembly

The faux-upper windows are installed on 2002, to conceal the a/c and resistor packs.

The finished product.  2002 turning from Willow to Carrollton, heading to Canal Street for testing.

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2000-Series: Propulsion

Control Panel on care 2015.  Gone are the old-style throttle and brake handles.

Control panel on 2014. Note the throttle handle on the left.

Samico A300 Propulsion System.

Brookville Equpiment Corporation trucks on 2015.

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2000-Series: Electrical

Car 2015 has just been pushed out onto Jeanette Street from the fabrication building.  It’s being moved to the main service facility, where it will be completed.

Another view of 2015.

2012, with doors, a/c units and electrical installed.  Note the red forklift on the left.  It is used to move the 2000 cars from track to track.

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The Paint Shop

When the body is completed, the car is pulled off of one of the fabrication tracks and moved to the paint shop track.  The paint shop is a closed area so the car will dry properly.

2023 after its initial coat of paint.

2015, freshly painted, dried, and moved back to an assembly track.

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Building the 2000-Series - Body Fabrication

The bodies of the 2000-series were fabricated at the shops at RTA’s Carrollton Station in 2003 and 2004. The design is loosely based on the Perley A. Thomas 900-series cars.

2024 during initial assembly.

2015 assembly. The trucks have been added.  The next step for this car is the paint shop.

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The Prototype Car, 2001

2001 on Canal Street, Summer, 2003

The design of the new streetcars is loosely based on the classic Perley Thomas cars running on the St. Charles line.  The prototype car, 2001, was scratch-built at Carrollton Station in 1998 and 1999.  RTA wanted to maintain the look of the arch-roof, 900-series cars, but had two complications:  The cars had to be ADA-compliant and the Canal cars also had to be air-conditioned.  Unlike the Riverfront line, Canal is a primary commuter line, and one of the arguments for getting rid of the streetcars in the early 1960s was their lack of air-conditioning. 

The air-conditioning unit is on the roof.  The bulge it makes is very unattractive, so the Carrollton team decided to make the room look like the old Brill semi-convertibles that were a mainstay of New Orleans street railways prior to the arch-roof cars. On the original Brill cars, the roof was raised, and the upper sets of windows provided better air flow through the car.

Original propulsion for the prototype car consisted of PCC-derivative trucks from CKD-Tatra in the Czech Republic The photo above is the streetcar that CKD-Tatra loaned to RTA so they could field-test the trucks. These trucks have been in use now for some time on the Riverfront cars.

After the line became operational in 2004, the prototype car was taken out of service and re-fitted with the BMC trucks and control equipment of the production cars, so now all 24 cars are essentially identical.

Another view of 2001, on St. Charles Avenue, heading to Canal Street from Carrollton Station.

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November 07, 2005

Feature Photo, 6-Nov-2005: "Palace" Cars at the Barn

"Palace" car 012, parked on one of the outside storage tracks at Canal Station. Made by the American Car Company of St. Louis, the luxurious "Palace" cars ran on the Canal and West End lines, as well as the Canal Belt and Esplanade Belt lines. 012's route sign indicates that it's running on the Canal Belt, dating this picture at somewhere between 1915 and 1925.

The "Palace" cars were roomier than the 800/900-series Perley Thomas streetcars that replaced them. The broad monitor deck on the roof also provided excellent airflow throughout the streetcar. The "Palace" cars were acquired by the New Orleans City RR Co., and were merged into the NOPSI fleet when that company was created in 1922. They continued in service until 1935.

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October 26, 2005

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.

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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.

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