This 1970 photo shows the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Pan American passenger train heading to Union Passenger Terminal on Loyola Avenue. From Mike Palmieri:
L&N No. 9 – NEW ORLEANS – Circa 1970 – Photographer Unknown
Louisville & Nashville train No. 9 – the southbound PAN-AMERICAN – was on the Southern Railway’s BACK BELT at East City Junction, about four miles from its destination at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal. The diverging track is the Southern’s St. Louis Street Line, which once served Terminal Station on Basin Street at Canal Street.
Prior to the opening of Union passenger Terminal (UPT), L&N trains arrived and departed from their passenger terminal at the head of Canal Street. When the city merged the five passenger stations into UPT in 1954, L&N trains approached the station via the Southern Railway (now Norfolk Southern) “Back Belt.” The trains came into town via the Rigolets bridge, then switched onto the Back Belt. As Mike mentions, the track curving off connected the Back Belt to Southern’s terminal at Canal and Basin Streets. The trains ran down Basin Street to tracks just before St. Louis Street. They turned north on St. Louis, connecting here to head to the “5 Mile Bridge” across Lake Pontchartrain. After 1954, that track saw limited use, as the Southern passenger trains also shifted to UPT. SR shifted most of its freight operations from their Bernadotte Yard in Mid-City to Gentilly. So, most of the track at St. Louis Street vanished over time. The path morphed into the Lafitte Greenway bicycle/walking trail.
Approach to the station
L&N #9 heads towards the back of Greenwood Cemetery. It turned into town at what was the east bank of the New Basin Canal. The track followed the canal, originally to Union Station on S. Rampart. Street. The city closed the canal in 1949. The Pontchartrain Expressway opened in its place. So, the end of this access track changed to UPT in 1954.
Amtrak uses this track for the Crescent (#19/#20) to New York. Additionally, the Sunset Limited extension to Jacksonville operated over it. That route closed in 2005. This summer, Amtrak inaugurated the Mardi Gras route, from UPT to Mobile, Alabama. Mardi Gras runs both ways, morning and evening. So, those four trains follow the route taken here by the Pan American.
Crescent City to Queen City
L&N operated the Pan American route, from New Orleans to Cincinnati, from 1921 to 1971. The railroad turned its passenger operations and equipment over to Amtrak in 1971. The new passenger rail company discontinued the Pan American in 1971. So, this photo shows the route in its last few months of operation.
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In the 1960s, Canal Street buses changed downtown.
Canal Street buses
From: 1965: NOPSI photo of a GM GMC TDH5303 bus. It’s running on the Canal-Lakeshore line, outbound, passing through the 1000 block of Canal Street. This photo dates to about a year after the conversion of Canal to bus service. The vintage-1923 arch roof streetcars ceased operation on Canal in May of 1964.
Cemeteries, Lake Vista, Lakeshore
So much can be said about the buses on Canal, and there are a few other items to be unpacked on this image. Let’s focus on the three Canal bus lines, post-streetcar. I rode those lines in both directions for the five years I attended Brother Martin High School in Gentilly. While my dad, who worked at the University of New Orleans, drove me to school in the morning, I rode public transit home. NOPSI provided two basic routes west from Gentilly. The Broad Street line ran from out in Da East, then Gentilly Blvd. The line turned onto Broad Street, just after passing Dillard University, continuing all the way to Lowerline, uptown. The other option using Gentilly Blvd. was the Carrollton line. Both of these lines crossed Canal. So, we would hop off and catch one of the three Canal lines to City Park Avenue. We caught the Veterans bus from there.
Lakeview
Then there was the second route, through Lakeview. We took the Cartier line from Mirabeau and Elysian Fields to Spanish Fort. The Cartier line started at Franklin and Mirabeau. It was, for all intents and purposes, a school bus route, passing by several elementary schools, F. W. Gregory Junior High, and John F. Kennedy Senior High. So at Spanish Fort, we transferred to the Canal (Lake Vista via Canal Blvd.) That line began its inbound run there. We’d ride Lake Vista to Toussaint and Canal Blvd. While the bus turned inbound on Canal Blvd., we got off and transferred to the line from this photo, Canal (Lakeshore via Pontchartrain Blvd.)
The Canal Lakeshore bus ran outbound on West End, turned right on Toussaint, then left on Canal Blvd. It terminated at the lake. For its outbound run, the line returned to Toussaint and went down Pontchartrain Blvd. So, we caught the inbound Lakeshore and rode it to Veterans, where we would pick up the Veterans.
Suburban transition
Cor Jesu and St. Aloysius High Schools didn’t have a lot of boys from Metairie attending the schools. As suburban expansion grew, the combined Brother Martin High appealed to a number of Crusader and Kingsmen families who moved out to Metairie. We kids from #themetrys were still a minority of the student body, back in the 70s. As the transition grew (now, most Crusaders live in Metairie and Kenner), the school offered school bus service, so families didn’t have to rely on less-reliable public buses.
To continued…
We’ll have more to say about this image in a couple of other posts. Thanks to Aaron Handy, III, for sharing this image to one of the bus fan groups on Facebook and triggering my memories!
The Canal Street Zone is the transit hub of the city.
Canal Street Zone
At the peak of my streetcar riding, in the mid-late 1970s, transfer slips always said, “Good on any connecting line or any line in the Canal Street Zone.” That concept goes back over a century now. The Canal Street Zone morphed into an (almost) all-bus concept in 1964, with the conversion of the Canal (Cemeteries) line to buses. This ad in the Times-Picayune on 15-August-1964 announces the roll-out of bus service in the Canal Street neutral ground:
Canal Street Buses Start Operating on Downtown Neutral Ground Sunday as Major Construction Nears End.”
Cemeteries line service continued with buses immediately after the electric overhead wires vanished at the end of May, 1964. While most streetcar infrastructure moved slowly, NOPSI and the city moved quickly to ensure the change stuck. No going back, similar to the move of passenger rail service to Union Passenger Terminal in 1954. Buses operated in the automobile lanes for the entire length of the line while city crews ripped up the tracks.
Return to the neutral ground
by August, 1964, the city cleared the streetcar tracks on Canal from Claiborne to Liberty Place. For the first time since 1861, no streetcars operated in the neutral ground. Only the one-block loop track for the St. Charles Line (Carondelet-Canal-St. Charles) remained. This is huge. At their peak levels of operation, streetcars ran on four tracks in the neutral ground. Uptown and Downtown lines approached Canal, looped for one or more blocks on the outside pair of tracks, then proceeded on their outbound runs.
So, that one-block loop was all there was from 1964 until the upgrade of the Riverfront line in 1997. While Riverfront opened in 1988, it did not connect to St. Charles. The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA, which took over from NOPSI in 1984) used the old L&N/Seaboard Coast Line (now-CSX) track. Riverfront grew in popularity to the point where NORTA expanded the line to two-track operation. They ripped up the standard-gauge track, replacing it with two wide-gauge (streetcar) tracks. Additionally, they built a connector from Riverfront to St. Charles. Now the “red ladies” could return to Carrollton Station under their own power.
Street-to-neutral ground
The photos in this ad show how the bus zone operated. Buses for all three Canal lines ran from City Park Avenue to Claiborne in the auto lanes. At Claiborne, they shifted to the inside (left) lane, entering the bus zone. They ran down to the river, turned around, and headed outbound. At Claiborne, they exited the zone, continuing in the auto lanes.
Direct service
The ad states, “Direct service between the river and the lake, with no transferring, is now offered for the same 10-cent fare for local and 15-cent for express.” Prior to all-bus operation on Canal, riders living in Lakeview took the West End bus to City Park Avenue. They transferred to the streetcar at that point. This! This right here is why it was so easy to sell discontinuing streetcar service on Canal. If you lived in Lakeshore or Lake Vista, you could board the extended lines, Canal-Lakeshore via Pontchartrain Blvd, or Canal-Lake Vista via Canal Blvd., by your house and ride into town without transferring. In air-conditioning. At a time when working downtown meant men wore suits and women wore dresses and hose, this was a Big. Deal.
The current Norfolk Southern Back Belt dates back to the beginning of the 20th century.
Norfolk Southern Back Belt in 1918
Map of New Orleans Terminal Company (NOTC) trackage as of 30-June-1918. This path across Orleans Parish became known as the “Back Belt,” in comparison to the “Public Belt” route that hugs the river and services the wharves. The NOTC acquired the land for the Back Belt in the early 1900s. While I don’t have documentation, it’s likely no coincidence that merchant and developer Leon Fellman bought the 1201 block of Canal Street. Did he know about the plans of the railroad men? NOTC later merged with the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, which in turn merged into the Southern Railway system in 1916. That’s how the route became part of the current Norfolk Southern System.
City bypass
The idea behind the Back Belt was to bypass most of the populated areas of Orleans Parish. The Back Belt originates in Jefferson Parish. It splits off of the former Illinois Central (now Canadian National) main line at Causeway Blvd. That’s the “Shrewsbury” reference on the map. It crossed the New Canal via a bascule bridge just north of Metairie Road. From there, the route crosses the city, then turns towards the river in St. Bernard Parish.
The city naturally developed in succeeding years. Lakeview and Gentilly caught up with the Back Belt by the 1920s. The Levee Board’s land reclamation projects in the 1920s opened up the area. As part of the Works Progress Administration projects of the Great Depression Era, the Back Belt expanded. WPA constructed underpasses at grade crossings throughout the city. So, once the route clears Carrollton Avenue in Metairie, there are no grade crossings for trains until they cross Lake Pontchartrain and reach Slidell.
The Terminal
Terminal Station, late 1910s
NOTC connected the Back Belt to downtown in 1908. They built Terminal Station at Canal and Basin Streets. The route ran adjacent to St. Louis Street through Mid-City. It linked up with the Back Belt at Greenwood Cemetery. Southern Railway used this connection for their “Bernadotte Yard,” so named because the yard started just below the connection point, at Bernadotte and St. Louis Streets.
Terminal Station operated from 1908 to 1954. The city constructed Union Passenger Terminal, shifting all passenger rail operations to the new station. The city demolished Terminal Station in 1956. The link to the Back Belt re-routed to follow the Pontchartrain Expressway. Today, Amtrak’s Crescent route uses that connection. The Back Belt continues to be incredibly busy, used by Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, CSX, Canadian National/KCS and Amtrak.
Pepsi and Berlin means special livery and private varnish on the Crescent. #TrainThursday
AMTK 160 in Phase III livery.
Pepsi and Berlin
Amtrak’s Crescent #20 rolled out of New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal (NOL) yesterday and today with some special units. The video above shows AMTK 332 and AMTK 160 pulling the train on 3-April-2024. The first engine, 332, is a Siemens Charger. These engines are newer than the P-42 “Genesis” locos. Amtrak mixes use of the two generations.
AMTK 160 is one of those older Genesis units. The railroad painted it in “Phase III” livery in 2021, to mark its 50th Anniversary. The scheme is affectionately known as “Pepsi Can,” since it resembles the colors of the soft drink’s logo. Amtrak implemented Phase III only on its GE Dash-8-32BWH locomotives. The railroad transitioned into the Genesis units, so they painted a Genesis in Phase III for the anniversary. We wrote about the Pepsi Can already, but it’s still fun to see it go by.
Sleep on a Train
On 4-April-2024, Private car “Berlin” hitched a ride with #20. Genesis locos AMTK 77 and 18 lead the train. We’ve also written about the private car, Berlin, but seeing it on the rails is a good sign. It means Spring is here! Travel by private railcar picks up in the Fall (foliage season in the NorthEast) and Cherry Blossom time in the Spring. Berlin heading to NYP means we’ll have to keep a closer eye out for it and other private cars.
New Orleans sees a number of these private cars pass through the city. Three Amtrak routes converge on New Orleans, the Sunset Limited (to Los Angeles), the City of New Orleans (to Chicago), and the Crescent (to New York). While most private car adventures make a round trip on a single route, some run transcontinental. They’ll hitch to a train heading out of New York, then change to one heading to the West Coast. So, we occasionally see private varnish arrive from New York, stay over a night or two, then head west, hooked to the Sunset Limited. This sort of connection began in the 1890s.
Looking Up Canal Boulevard and the underpass from the 5400 block.
Up Canal Boulevard
Franck Studios Photo titled, Up Canal Boulevard from the 5400 block (LDL/The Historic New Orleans Collection). Photo shows a Southern Railway’s “Southerner” passenger train, about fifteen minutes after departure from Union Passenger Terminal (UPT) downtown. The Works Progress Administration constructed this and several other underpasses for the “Back Belt” route in 1940. The underpasses created a path for the trains that had no grade crossings with roads. Once a train leaves UPT (or a freight train enters Orleans Parish), there are no grade crossings until it crosses Lake Pontchartrain.
5500 Canal Boulevard
view up Canal Boulevard from the top of the train bridge in the 5500 block (Franck Studios Photo)
This photo shows the other side of the underpass. Traffic heading to the lakefront travels on the right, including an old-style NOPSI bus. While it’s not physically difficult to climb up to the bridge and tracks, it’s not recommended. A Cloverleaf Dairy delivery truck pulls into the street on the left.
THNOC includes their generic record notation for this photo. That lists the date as 1941. That’s not accurate, though, since the trains didn’t pass over Canal Boulevard until after UPT opened in 1954. So, this train rolls out of town in the 1950s. The Southerner followed a route from New Orleans to Atlanta using Southern Railway routes exclusively. The Crescent Limited and Crescent trains traveled from Mobile to New Orleans on Louisville and Nashville tracks along the Gulf Coast.
Amtrak
The Back Belt carries a great deal of freight traffic. The route connects freight yards in Avondale (UP and BNSF) and Metairie (CN and KCS) with the Norfolk Southern yard in Gentilly and CSX yard in New Orleans East. There’s a single Amtrak train, the Amtrak Crescent, traveling this route. Amtrak assumed operations of the Crescent from Southern in 1977. The train runs daily from UPT, arriving at New York Penn Station (NYP) the following day. Here’s the Amtrak Crescent crossing Canal Boulevard, 28-December-2023:
Two engines, AMTK 83, a GE P42DC “Genesis” and AMTK 338, a Siemens “Charger” pull a consist of three coaches, a cafe car, two sleepers and a bag-dorm car. The train will reach New York Penn Station the next day.
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