Green wooden cars have rattled along St. Charles Avenue since 1835 with only brief interruptions, making this the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world. The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad began operation on September 26, 1835, initially horse-drawn and converted to steam and then to electric power in the 1890s. The cars that run today are the same green Perley Thomas models that went into service in 1923, maintained and repaired by skilled craftspeople who keep the century-old vehicles operational.
Tennessee Williams named his most famous play A Streetcar Named Desire after two New Orleans streetcar lines — the Desire line that once ran through the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny, and the Cemeteries line — and the combination of mechanical character, neighborhood intimacy, and faded grandeur that Williams drew from the streetcars suffuses the entire play. Riding the St. Charles line from Canal Street to the Riverbend and back is one of the great free urban experiences in America: the car sways and rattles through the tunnel of live oaks along the neutral ground, passing the mansions of the Garden District and Uptown, the great houses set back behind deep lawns, the Tulane and Loyola campuses, and the streetcar suburb neighborhoods of Carrollton. Board at any stop and ride to the end of the line.