Whenever he comes to New Orleans from his home in Greenwell Springs, Dr. Herschel Dean makes a point of hopping aboard a streetcar.
“I like the looks of them,” said Dean, whose office walls are adorned with pictures of streetcars. “I like the idea of riding the cars and looking at the scenery.”
His passion for this mode of transportation isn’t restricted to New Orleans. When Dean, 82, is in other cities that have streetcars, he rides them, and he’s a train aficionado, too.
“Riding on a streetcar is something I just enjoy doing,” he said. “I’ve gotten more involved as I’ve gotten older.”
Green’s fascination with streetcars led him to ask Curious Louisiana about the history of the St. Charles line, which is not just the oldest in the city but the oldest street railway in the world.
“I thought other people might be interested,” he said, “because that’s a unique thing in New Orleans.”
The St. Charles cars first rolled in 1835. The fare was 25 cents, Louis C. Hennick and E Harper Charlton wrote in “The Streetcars of New Orleans.” (That fare translates to $7.58 in today’s dollars.)
Other lines sprang up throughout the city, as did a network of private companies that operated them — and competed for business. That prompted the city to create New Orleans Public Service Inc. in 1922 to streamline transit operation, as well as supply electricity to New Orleanians, according to experienceneworleans.com. The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority took over bus and streetcar operations in 1984.
When mules pulled streetcars
In the 1840s, when mules pulled the cars, the fare dropped to 15 cents (the equivalent of nearly $3 today), and then to a dime in 1893, when electricity powered the cars, said Edward Branley, who bills himself as “N.O. History Guy.” (Electrification, incidentally, followed experiments with steam engines, which created soot and noise, as well as overhead cable propulsion, which San Francisco adapted for its cable cars, and engines powered by ammonia and calcium chloride.)
After dropping briefly to 8 cents in 1920, a bus or streetcar ride started costing 7 cents, which remained constant until January 1970, when the fare went back to a dime.
The current cost for a ride is $1.25. Multiday passes are available.
For more than a century, Catholic nuns and priests rode buses and streetcars for free. That century-old policy ended in 1988, as did exemptions for crossing guards, police officers and firefighters, after the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in federal court charging that free rides for nuns and priests violated the First Amendment requirement separating church and state.
Keeping the streetcars running
Back to the streetcars themselves. The dark-green, mahogany-trimmed Perley A. Thomas cars that clatter along the 6.5-mile St. Charles line were introduced a century ago and are maintained by RTA staffers who occasionally use antique tools in the streetcar barn on Willow Street just off South Carrollton Avenue.
According to the RTA’s website, the cars cost about $15,000 apiece when they were brought to New Orleans and would cost about $4 million to build today.
In 1973, the streetcar line was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The St. Charles cars and San Francisco’s cable cars are the only streetcar members of that list.
New Orleans celebrated that accolade with a party at Gallier Hall. Guests included Tennessee Williams, who had used the name of another streetcar line — Desire — in the title of his most famous play.
Also on hand was the preservationist Martha Robinson, who said she felt “pretty good, for someone who remembers when mules pulled the cars.”
Historic and breezy streetcars
Because those streetcars are on the National Register, nothing about them, including the mahogany seats and bare light bulbs, can be changed. That rules out air conditioning, but streetcar buffs say they enjoy the breezes that waft through the open windows.
Being on the Register also means the original cars can’t be modified to make them wheelchair-accessible. To comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, RTA in 2020 took three cars equipped with wheelchair lifts from its Riverfront line, painted them green to match the St. Charles cars and pressed them into service.
For more than 180 years, service along the line has been continuous, although there have been interruptions for maintenance.
But Hurricane Katrina’s winds and flooding clobbered the line. Restoration cost $14.2 million and took nearly three years, and it happened in stages — from Canal Street to Lee Circle (now Harmony Circle), then to Napoleon Avenue, South Carrollton Avenue and, finally, South Claiborne Avenue in June 2008.
New Orleans being New Orleans, the occasion was marked with a celebration with speeches and music by the Storyville Stompers.
The St. Charles line “is part of the fabric and the rhythm of the city,” Mayor Ray Nagin said.
Its restoration to active duty marked a milestone in the city’s recovery from the monster storm, City Council President Jackie Clarkson said. “This sends a message to the world that says, ‘We really are back in business.’”
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