Back on Track in New Orleans

Streetcar No. 930 rolled out of the French Market on Sunday festooned in garland and ribbon, bringing the old clackety-clack back to the streets of New Orleans.

The green trolleys have carried tourists and commuters past New Orleans’ mansions and parks for generations, but the lines fell silent as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the region and struck Aug. 29.

When the storm passed and the floodwaters cleared, the metal tracks and power lines were too severely damaged for the streetcars to return.

“It has taken so much to get here,” said Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman Rosalind Blanco Cook. “Evaluating the cars, trying to get the cars on different routes and getting the operators back -- it took a lot of work.”

In 170 years of service, the St. Charles Avenue line had helped make trolleys one of the city’s icons and earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places as the oldest continually operating streetcar line in the world.

On Sunday, six of the St. Charles line’s 35 green streetcars were back in operations, though they moved along the Mississippi Riverfront line and part of the Canal Street line instead.

The newer red trolleys that run on those routes were severely damaged by the flooding. So with the St. Charles route through the city’s Garden District not yet ready for streetcar service, the City Council voted to move the old green streetcars, which date to the 1920s. The Department of Transportation allowed the transit authority to use up to $70 million in federal money to make repairs.

Getting conductors back into the city was part of the battle to resume service. Many transit workers, including Cook, are living on a cruise ship docked at the riverfront because their homes were destroyed by the hurricane.

Clarence Glover, a streetcar driver for 22 years, left his wife and daughter with family in Houston to return to his job.