New Orleans, Louisiana:
Riverfront Streetcar Line

Description and History

New Orleans's Riverfront streetcar line runs close to the Mississippi River alongside the tracks of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, from the French Quarter station at the foot of Esplanade Avenue to the John Churchill Chase station at the New Orleans Convention Center, a distance of about 1.5 miles. (For some reason, the official timetable folder shows the upriver terminal as being at Thalia Street, which is about 0.2 mile beyond John Churchill Chase Street.) There is no in-street running except for grade crossings, e.g. at Canal Street. There are nine low-platform stations:

1. French Market [Esplanade Avenue]
2. Ursulines Street
3. Dumaine Street
4. Toulouse Street
5. Bienville Street
6. Canal Street
7. Poydras Street
8. Julia Street
9. John Churchill Chase [Convention Center]

An end-to-end trip takes twelve minutes. The downriver half of the line (Canal Street to French Market) is also used by the Canal Street - City Park line, which provides a single-seat ride from French Market to Canal Street.

The cars that are currently used were built in the late 1990s in the New Orleans RTA's Carrollton shops, as modern replicas of the Perley Thomas cars that run on the St. Charles line. Like the modern Canal Street cars, they are painted red to distinguish them from the St. Charles cars.

The Riverfront line began operation in 1988 as a single-track standard gauge line with a single passing siding, somewhat shorter than the current line. It used two Perley Thomas cars that had formerly run in New Orleans on the old Canal Street line, plus two W2 cars from Melbourne, Australia.

The line was successful enough that a second track was added in 1990, along with two more cars (another Perley Thomas and another Melbourne W2 car).