PONCHARTRAIN RAILROAD – 1830 – 1932 (Nickname Smoky Mary) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontchartrain_Railroad Pontchartrain Rail-Road was an early railway in New Orleans, Louisiana. Chartered in 1830, the railroad began traffic of people and goods between the Mississippi River front of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain on 23 April 1831, and closed more than 100 years later. The 6-mile (10 km) long 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm) gauge line connected the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans along the riverfront with the town of Milneburg 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 Railroad in its early years was a steam locomotive and carriages, Ponchartrain Railroad (Milneburg Train) was a 5 mile line from Elysian Fields Street to the Shore of Lake Ponchartrain at Milneburg. Meetings discussing building a railway between the river and lake began in 1828. The Pontchartrain Railroad 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. Some of the route included swampland that required up to 4 feet of fill to create a sufficient road bed. A 150 foot wide bed was constructed along the entire route, with the rail line laid with red cypress timbers and English rolled iron rails. Construction of the line was completed on April 14, 1831, and it officially opened on the 23rd,with horse drawn railway carriages. The Pontchartrain supplied from England by Rothwell, Hick & Co. allowing the line to advertise regular steam service of 7 round trips per day (9 on Sundays) starting on 27 September 1832. For some years both steam and horse drawn traffic ran on the line, 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 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 oceangoing 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. 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 midpoint 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 Railroad leased the line, and the following year purchased it outright. In the late 19th century, the Pontchartrain 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. The steam engine nicknamed Smoky Mary ran on the line as late as the 1930s. The last passenger service of the line was on March 15, 1932, the line having been in business for over a century.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:19:21 +0000
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