News Roundup

New Orleans trolleys KO’d by Katrina

Associated Press:

The clackety old streetcars that have traveled up and down St. Charles Avenue for the past 170 years and their shiny new red counterparts on Canal Street will be out of service for months, maybe a year or more.

All 24 of the new cars for the recently completed Canal Street line and six of seven of the River Front cars were destroyed by the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina. The antique St. Charles cars were safe, but the power system that propels them past the famous mansions, universities and parks was wrecked and must be totally rebuilt.

“We took a major hit,” said Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman Rosalind Blanco Cook. “We don’t really have an estimate for bringing the lines back.”

The St. Charles streetcar line — the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world — is on the National Register of Historic Places and one of the icons of the city. Streetcars traveling past the mansions, universities and parks offer tourist a taste of the city’s past and residents a reliable commute for $1.25.

The Riverfront line was added in 1988 and last spring the Canal Street line, which was abandoned 40 years ago, was restored.

The St. Charles cars, built in 1923-24, are carefully maintained by the RTA. The new cars were built by the agency under the supervision of Elmer von Dullen, an expert in streetcar construction and maintenance.

The old streetcars were parked in the Uptown barn and escaped unscathed. The new cars were taken to the Canal Street barn.

“That’s where we all evacuated to as well,” Cook said. “We thought it was safe, and it was until the flood.”

The building took five feet or water which stayed for more than two weeks.

“It was really sad,” von Dullen said. “It was very corrosive. All the metal rusted. Even the plastic had white bubbles. If you had a shiny piece of plastic, it blistered the surface.”

Unlike the St. Charles cars, which von Dullen describes as Model A’s in their simplicity, the new cars are operated by a computer, air conditioned and handicapped accessible. It took 142 days to build each car, von Dullen said. It will probably take that long to rebuild them.

“We’re going to have to have all the undercarriages replaced,” von Dullen said. “We’ll have to go in there and tear out all the old wiring, rip out the paneling, rip floor out, treat for corrosion. Then we have to put the wiring and flooring back. then the seats and interior paneling. It’s almost like building new ones.”

The bill for repairs is estimated at $1 million per car, Cook said. It’s hoped that federal aid will pick up some of the tab. Restoring the power lines for the St. Charles line will be less expensive, but since much of the city is still without electricity, it’s not a high priority.

The St. Charles cars could run on the other lines, Cook said. But because of their historic designation, they are not allowed to.

“We’re going to appeal that because of the special circumstances,” Cook said. “We’re hopeful we can use them to get the lines going again.”