St. Charles Streetcar, New Orleans, Louisiana - Philatelic Photographs on Waymarking.com

In 1835, the New Orleans and Carrollton Rail Road was established, providing passenger service between the city of New Orleans and the suburb of Carrollton. (Carrollton was subsequently incorporated into the city of New Orleans.) As the population grew along the route, sooty steam engines were replaced by horse-drawn carriages which eventually gave way to electric streetcars by the end of the nineteenth century.

In the early 1920s, the city purchased 73 new electric streetcars from the Perley A. Thomas company of North Carolina. These double-ended, arched-roof cars were a commonplace in many cities across America at that time. They were numbered in the 900s and were operated on all the (now consolidated) streetcar lines in New Orleans.

New Orleans was slow to modernize their streetcar fleet and by the 1970s, was still operating with the now fifty-year old Perley Thomas cars. In 1973, preservationists managed to get the St. Charles streetcar line listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This, as the New Orleans RTA laments, requires that the vintage streetcars be maintained to appear as they did and be operated as they were in the 1920s.

In 1983, the United States issued a set of four stamps featuring historic streetcars. One of these was a vintage 900-series St. Charles streetcar from New Orleans (and the only one of the four still in service). This is not the only stamp to feature one of these cars. In the 1940s, these same streetcars were in operation on New Orleans’ Desire St. line and were the inspiration for the title of Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire.” As such, one can be seen in the background of the Tennessee Williams stamp issued in 1995.

During hurricane Katrina, all the historic streetcars were stored at the Carrollton barn, above sea-level, and thus escaped damage. Most of the rest of New Orleans’ streetcar fleet suffered from damaged running gear due to flooding. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, only the historic cars were in service.

Today, 35 of the vintage Perley Thomas streetcars are still in operation along the St. Charles Ave. line. Of course, they may be seen anywhere along this line (and the stamp shows only the streetcar without any background). The coordinates I gave is where I happened to catch No. 953, the very streetcar shown on the stamp. Several other 900-series New Orleans streetcars survive in museums and other heritage sites.

Stamp Issuing Country: United States Date of Issue: 8-Aug-1983 Denomination: 20c Color: multicolored Stamp Type: Single Stamp Relevant Web Site: Not listed

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