Long Desired, Streetcar Returns to New Orleans

Progress comes slowly to New Orleans, but come it does. And one of the latest signs of that progress — more than two years after Hurricane Katrina — is the return of the beloved St. Charles Avenue Streetcar to Uptown New Orleans.

Its sound had been sorely missed along the grandest avenue of New Orleans.

To hear that old rumble of steel wheels come grumbling up behind you, to turn and see those green streetcars back on the tracks again is like seeing an old friend who's been away a while. And that means something around here.Johnny Avie has been a New Orleans streetcar driver for 25 years.

"I was just thinking about how much hasn't changed," he says. "Like today, the weather is changing. It's getting from being cold to warm and the tracks actually sweats, like a person does, because of the temperature."

And sweaty tracks mean slippery tracks. So, on mornings like this one, Avie has to click a button on the floor that drops sand on the tracks as the car goes along. There's no modern technology at play — no little wipers out in front to mop up the tracks.

The St. Charles Streetcar line has eschewed modernization and uses the same streetcars the city bought in 1923. That means riders do without heat and air conditioning.

Hot or cold, riders "love their streetcar," Avie says.

Winter's really not too bad and in the summer, there's nothing quite like putting all the windows down and catching a breeze as you roll under the canopy of giant, old oaks, passing the fabulous mansions of the Garden District.

More from NPR