by nolahistoryguy | Sep 9, 2025 | 1970s, Amtrak, L&N, Lakeview, Patreon, Podcasts
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After 1954, L&N passenger trains like the Pan American ran on the Back Belt to UPT.
L&N Pan American 1970
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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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by nolahistoryguy | Apr 11, 2025 | Railroads
Amazon shipping containers are modern inspiration in Back Belt intermodal. (Crossposted to NewOrleansRailroads dot com)
Container freight at Canal Blvd.
Back Belt intermodal
Seems like it’s been a while since an intermodal consist came past Lakeview on the Norfolk Southern Back Belt. Back Belt intermodal indicates freight passing through. While so much of the traffic going by the coffee shop is local, the long trains seem to be military hardware or tank cars. I remember more shipping containers passing through, particularly during the early days of the pandemic. I would run into the coffee shop, then spend the morning writing alone, out by the commercial nursery in City Park. Along with the reefers and tank cars, you’d see long-ish intermodal consists.
Container freight in New Orleans
The riverfront terminals at Napoleon Avenue are the primary intermodal facilities along the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Some specs on capacity:
840,000 annual TEU capacity; Load bearing capacity: 1,000 psf live load (ability to stack containers 5 high); 48-acre marshalling yard; Advanced Gate Appointment System with transponders to track truck movements; Reefer plugs: 304 units (40-foot); 15 refrigerated container receptacles with 450 electrified slots; Expansion footprint provides capacity up to 1.5 million TEUs per year.
Still, Back Belt intermodal isn’t in position to go down to the riverfront.
Prototype modeling
Transfer terminal at Napoleon Avenue (courtesy Port NOLA)
The Port of New Orleans offers a great deal of potential for intermodal modeling. This photo from PortNOLA, shows the container rail transfer station at Napoleon Avenue. This would make for a good addition to a switching layout. While it would compress the actual distance, it might even be possible to run a streetcar line along the edge of the terminal. After all, the Tchoupitoulas line ran as street rail for decades.
Additionally, it’s good to see the types of containers that pass through on the Back Belt. The Amazon containers here are a darker blue than the ones I usually see on the highway. These would be easy to add to any layout.
by nolahistoryguy | Dec 2, 2024 | 1950s, Airplanes/Airports, CBD, Railroads
Many railroads and airlines operated ticket agent offices at the St. Charles Hotel.
The St. Charles Hotel was Travel Central
Photo of the Eastern Airlines ticket office on the ground floor of the St. Charles Hotel, early 1950s. Photo is from Franck Studios, via THNOC. The St. Charles was one of the city’s premier hotels since its opening in 1837. Since it attracted so many business travelers, the hotel leased out storefront space on the ground floor to railroads, and later, airlines. This started back in the early 20th century and continued well into the 1960s. After the opening of the Union Passenger Terminal in 1954, many of the railroads offering passenger service moved ticket operations to the station. It wasn’t all that far, and tickets could be delivered back to travelers staying at the hotel by messenger.
Eastern Airlines
After World War II, commercial airline travel increased dramatically. Therefore, airlines moved into storefronts previously occupied by the railroads. Eastern Airlines began operations in 1926. After the war, the airline ran regular flights from New Orleans to Miami (its headquarters and hub), and New York City. While Delta dominated air travel from New Orleans to Atlanta, Eastern also flew the route. The airline offered personal service to travelers in the CBD with this ticket office.
Third St. Charles
Eastern’s ticket office stood in the third (and final) incarnation of the St. Charles Hotel. After the second hotel burned down in 1894, this incarnation opened in 1896. So, in terms of travel service, this building ruled over the planes and trains. Streetcar routes were designed to pass by the hotel and all the major railroad terminals. The St. Charles lasted until 1974. The owner, Louis J, Roussel, Jr., demolished the hotel that year. He intended to build a massive, 800-room hotel on the site, but that plan never materialized. After ten years as an empty lot, the Place St. Charles office tower replaced the hotel. Capital One Bank now claims the naming rights for the building.
by nolahistoryguy | Sep 27, 2024 | 1950s, Mid-City, Southern Ralway
The Bernadotte Yard contained a roundhouse for Southern Railway.
(x-posted to neworleansrailroads.com)
Southern Railway Roundhouse
Section of a Sanborn Fire Map for Mid-City New Orleans, from 1950-1951, showing a roundhouse and turntable facility. The roundhouse stood inside Southern Railway’s Bernadotte Yard, in the block bounded by N. Scott, St. Louis, N. Cortez, and Conti Streets. The yard tracks ran (more-or-less) from Canal Boulevard, across from Greenwood Cemetery, following St. Louis Street to just past Norman C. Francis Parkway. The tracks merged into a single pair, heading along St. Louis St. to Basin St., where they turned into Terminal Station at Canal and Basin.
The yard serviced a number of industrial sites in Mid-City. On one side of the roundhouse stood Inland Steel Company’s plant, with a Sears, Roebuck warehouse on the other. American Can Company operated their factory just two blocks away. So, this part of New Orleans was heavily industrialized. This limited the size of the residential areas of Mid-City, going into the 1950s. The New Canal, now I-10) to the West and the railroad to the East. Canal Street served as the main street in the neighborhood. So much industry along railroad and canal enticed families living in the French Quarter, Marigny, and Treme towards the lake.
Engine facilities
The railroad required a parking and maintenance facility for its equipment in the yard. Additionally, locomotives for Southern’s passenger trains required a facility. While the passenger depot stood at Canal and Basin Streets, there was no room for parking. So, Southern Railroad constructed a turntable and roundhouse for both. The map shows three tracks connecting building and turntable, but a note says “full of tracks.” It looks like there were six or eight tracks going into the roundhouse. Two tracks approached the turntable from the lake side, with a single through track and a siding on the river side.
Little trace
Google Earth screenshot of the location of the roundhouse.
In spite of the heavy industrialization of this neighborhood during and after World War II, few traces of all these operations remain. Most of the factories and warehouse were demolished or re-purposed. The area now features a mix of commercial strip malls, warehouse, and houses. We’ll add on to this exploration of the Bernadotte Yard going forward. I have little information on this facility behold the map. If anyone can point me towards more details, please drop me a note.
Citation
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. Sanborn Map Company, – Jul 1950; Vol. 2, 1951. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03376_026/.
by nolahistoryguy | Aug 29, 2024 | 1980s, 1990s, 2020s, Public Belt, Railroads, Streetcars
NORTA and NOPB meet in the Riverfront Railroad Convergence.
NORTA 2004, a 2000-series Von Dullen Streetcar, operating on UPT-Riverfront (Infrogmation photo)
Riverfront Railroad Convergence
Railroads and street railways regularly crossed and ran in parallel. At their peak in the 1920s, New Orleans boasted of over 200 miles of street rail track. Railroads criss-cross streets to this day. As street railway lines decreased in the 1920s to the conversion of the Canal Street line in 1964, By 1988, we had a return of activity in the Riverfront Railroad Convergence.
From 1964 to 1988, New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated (NOPSI) and the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA) operated a single streetcar line, St. Charles. In the late 1980s, NORTA (which took control of the city’s transit operations in 1984) planned a new streetcar line. They constructed “Riverfront” as a tourist line. This line operated separate from St. Charles. Riverfront’s original route ran from the Morial Convention Center to the French Market. NORTA renovated one of the old L&N/Seabord Coast tracks along the river. They installed standard-gauge trucks on arch roof streetcars they recovered from various sources. The line opened in August of 1988. Since then, railroads and street rail operate in parallel along the river. The New Orleans Public Belt Railroad operates most of the regular railroad traffic along the riverfront.
Streetcars
NORTA 451, one of the original Riverfront cars. (AC Transit photo)
After the expansion and modifications made to Riverfront in the late 1990s, the line morphed from tourist-only to part of the city’s transit system. The line now operates as Route 49, UPT-Riverfront. The line starts at the French Market. It runs along the Riverfront to Canal Street, where it turns lakebound. At Elk Place, the line turns to continue on Loyola Avenue. It terminates at Union Passenger Terminal (UPT), the city’s Amtrak station. So, the current line no longer connects the Convention Center. This was a major shift from Riverfront’s original purpose. It now focuses on moving locals and Quarter tourists rather than conventioneers.
New Orleans Public Belt
NOPB power parked by the NORTA Ursulines Street Station, 2017. (Infrogmation photo)
Meanwhile, NOPB keeps on rolling! While the number of wharves along the riverfront dwindles, the original mission of the Public Belt continues. NOPB maintains the tracks from the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson to the Industrial Canal. Those tracks enable wharf access to all railroads in the metro area.
Vintage “business car” parked on NOPB tracks, 2014. (Infrogmation photo)
Additionally, the NOPB parked their vintage business car by the Old US Mint, until the car was sold.
by nolahistoryguy | Jul 3, 2024 | 1900s - 1910s, 1940s, CBD, L&A, Railroads
There’s often confusion over passenger station locations on S. Rampart Street.
Passenger Station Locations
Prior to the opening of Union Passenger Terminal (the current Amtrak station) on Loyola Avenue, five passenger depots operated in New Orleans. Two of those stood on S. Rampart Street. When passenger stations locations are in close proximity, it’s natural for confusion to develop. Union Station (Illinois Central and Southern Pacific) stood on the west side of the New Basin Canal, and the Louisiana and Arkansas station stood on the eastern side of the canal. Since the city demolished both stations in the 1950s, let’s pinpoint both with Sanborn Insurance Maps (courtesy of the Library of Congress).
Union Station
The Illinois Central Railroad re-located to S. Rampart Street in the 1890s. So, this was the first depot near the canal. Southern Pacific, originally operating at Esplanade and the river, later joined IC in Union Station. The map section above (Sanborn, 1908) shows the station (also shown at the top of this post), between Euphrosine Street and Howard Avenue on S. Rampart. The water on the other side of Howard is the tuning basin for the New Canal. (Note: the only part of the canal that remains is out at Lake Pontchartrain. If you go up West End or down Pontchartrain Boulevards in Lakeview, that wide grassy area separating the streets where the canal flowed.
So, building a train depot next to a navigation canal made perfect sense. Therefore, when the city filled in the canal in the 1940s, the location was a logical choice for the unified station.
Louisiana and Arkansas
Zoom-in on the L&A Terminal, Sanborn Maps, 1940 (via LOC)
The Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad built a passenger terminal on the eastern side of the New Canal in 1923. This map section (Sanborn, 1940) shows S. Rampart passenger station locations. This terminal stood at 705 S. Rampart Street. L&A merged/acquired Kansas City Southern in 1938. Since KCS was the better-known brand, the station changed to their name and signage. While the map still says “Louisiana and Arkansas,” the depot morphed into KCS until it closed in 1954.
What happened to the canal?
Zoom-in on Union Station, Sanborn Maps, 1940
The New Canal’s turning basin vanishes in the 1940 map. Sanborn labels the area there as “WPA Offices and Storage Yard.” One of the many Works Progress Administration’s projects in New Orleans was filling in the New Canal. The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (Industrial Canal) rendered the New Canal redundant. WPA identified potential construction projects and threw federal funds at them. So, the canal basin morphed into storage area immediately after closure.
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