Pontchartrain Rail-Road was an early
railwayRail transport is the conveyance of passengers and goods by means of wheeled vehicles running along railways or railroads. Rail transport is part of the logistics chain, which facilitates international trade and economic growth...
in
New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans is a major U.S. port and the largest city in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans is the center of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, the largest metro area in the state....
. Chartered in 1830, the railroad began traffic of people and goods between the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
front of New Orleans and
Lake PontchartrainLake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second-largest saltwater lake in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana....
on 23 April, 1831, and closed down over 100 years later.
The 5
mileA mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 1,609.344 meters or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters...
long line connected the
Faubourg MarignyThe Marigny is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Bywater District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: North Rampart Street and St...
neighborhood of New Orleans along the riverfront with the town of
MilneburgMilneburg is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Gentilly District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Leon C. Simon Drive to the north, People's Avenue to the east, Filmore Avenue to the south and Elysian Fields Avenue to the west...
on the Lakefront. When built, the majority of the distance of the route between neighborhoods at either end of the route was a mixture of farmland, woods, and swamp.
Pontchartrain Rail-Road was an early
railwayRail transport is the conveyance of passengers and goods by means of wheeled vehicles running along railways or railroads. Rail transport is part of the logistics chain, which facilitates international trade and economic growth...
in
New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans is a major U.S. port and the largest city in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans is the center of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, the largest metro area in the state....
. Chartered in 1830, the railroad began traffic of people and goods between the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
front of New Orleans and
Lake PontchartrainLake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana. It is the second-largest saltwater lake in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the largest lake in Louisiana....
on 23 April, 1831, and closed down over 100 years later.
The 5
mileA mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 1,609.344 meters or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters...
long line connected the
Faubourg MarignyThe Marigny is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Bywater District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: North Rampart Street and St...
neighborhood of New Orleans along the riverfront with the town of
MilneburgMilneburg is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Gentilly District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Leon C. Simon Drive to the north, People's Avenue to the east, Filmore Avenue to the south and Elysian Fields Avenue to the west...
on the Lakefront. When built, the majority of the distance of the route between neighborhoods at either end of the route was a mixture of farmland, woods, and swamp. The route of the railway ran down the center of
Elysian Fields AvenueElysian Fields Avenue is a broad, straight avenue in New Orleans named after the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. It courses south to north from the Lower Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, a distance of approximately . The avenue intersects with Interstate 610, Interstate 10, and U.S....
.
Early history
Meetings discussing building a railway between the river and lake began in 1828. The Pontchartrain Rail-Road was chartered on 20 January 1830. The right-of-way was approved by the New Orleans City Council on 15 March, and construction began immediately, with a pair of parallel railroad tracks. Construction of the line was completed on April 14, 1831, and it officially opened on the 23rd, with
horseThe horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
drawn railway carriages. The first
steam locomotiveA steam locomotive is a locomotive powered by steam. The term usually refers to its use on railways, but can also refer to a "road locomotive" such as a traction engine or steamroller....
, "the Shields", arrived on 15 June, 1832. This first locomotive proved unreliable; a second locomotive "the Pontchartrain" proved better, allowing the line to advertise regular steam service of 7 round trips per day (9 on Sundays) starting on 27 September 1832. "The Shields" was canibalized, the boiler used to run equipment at the railroad's machine shop.
At first, the passenger fare was 75
centsThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
round trip. For some years both steam and horse drawn traffic ran on the line, with steam only gradually becoming dominant with the acquisition of additional more reliable locomotives. One horse drawn car was kept on the line as late as 1861, although the line at the time also had 5 working locomotives.
For much of the of the 19th century, a significant portion of sea traffic to New Orleans came in not via the river but to Lake Pontchartrain. Thus the railway was important in transferring cargo between ocean going ships docked at the lake and riverboats. Many passenger sea ships also arrived via the lake, and the railway took passengers the remainder of the way into the city.
For decades the passenger fare was 15 cents for a one way trip, 25 cents for a round trip. The railroad had terminals at the two ends of the line; stops would also be made at a small station at Gentilly Road, about the mid point of the line, by advance request.
In 1871 the line was purchased by the New Orleans, Mobile and Texas Railroad.
In 1880 the
Louisville and Nashville RailroadThe Louisville and Nashville Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.Chartered by the state of Kentucky in 1850, the L&N, as it was generally known, grew into one of the great success stories of American business...
leased the line, and the following year purchased it outright.
The line switches from shipping to recreation
In the late 19th century, the Pontrchartrain Railroad became less important for commerce, as ships too large to use the Lakefront routes became common and the extensive network of long distance railways grew. However at the same time, the line became more important for recreation. Especially during the long summer, excursions from the city out to the lakefront with the cooling breezes and the entertainments at Milneberg became common.
In the early 20th century rates were 10 cents for adults, 5 cents for children one way, and double for round trip.
Generations of New Orleanians fondly remembered the archaic veteran steam engine nicknamed "Smoky Mary" running on the line as late as the 1930s. The somewhat less outdated companion locomotive on the line was called "Puffing Billy".
Final years
Thanks to the popularity of recreational excursions at Milneburg, business remained brisk for the Pontchartrain Railroad through the mid 1920s. After this, however, the railroad declined for two reasons. One was less demand for short distance rail passenger service with expansion of electric
streetcarA tram, tramcar, trolley, trolleycar, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle, of lighter weight and construction than a conventional train, designed for the transport of passengers within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities, on tracks running primarily on streets...
routes and growth in
automobileAn automobile, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
ownership. The final straw, however, was the closing of the Milneburg resorts while a land reclamation project dredged earth into the shallows of lake Pontchartrain there in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The last passenger service of the line was on March 15, 1932, the line having been in business for over a century.
Freight runs on the line continued to 1935, mostly servicing the Lakefront land reclamation project work which made the line obsolete.
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