Feature Photo - 14-Dec-2009

Perley A. Thomas streetcar 921, heading outbound on Canal Street in August, 2007.  From December, 2005 until April, 2008, the 1923-vintage "green" streetcars ran on the Canal Line while the 2000-series Von Dullen streetcars (the red ones with the faux monitor deck) were being rebuilt after the storm.

(more after the jump)

NORTA had a bit of a dilemma post-storm.  The trackage and wiring for the Canal line was essentially intact.  Even though Mid City got a lot of water, everything was OK once it drained.  On St. Charles, however, wind damaged 60% of the overhead wiring system.  The city and NORTA decided to keep these icons of New Orleans moving by running the 900s on Canal.  This was a breach of the restrictions placed on these streetcars when they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.  The impact of the storm was deemed to be serious enough to waive/ignore those restrictions temporarily.

Visitors to the city today will see red on Canal and green on St. Charles, just as it should be.  Still, just for a while, it was a bit of a time warp to the pre-1964 days to see the 900s heading to the cemeteries.

Welcome back, everyone, to the new CanalStreetCar (dot com)!  We're now running on a combination of Drupal and MediaWiki.  The blog and discussion components will be on the Drupal site, and the "static" components, such as history and route information, will be built into the Wiki.  Come join us in expanding both.