Southern Pacific Railroad transfer boat carrier, New Orleans, La., Detroit Publishing Co. Library of Congress
Back in the day before the Huey P. Long Bridge, crossing the Mississippi River was difficult, especially for trains.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the only way to move people and goods back and forth across the river from New Orleans to the West Bank was by man-powered boats. Then came steam service by the mid-1800s. According to the Friends of the Ferry, a non-profit organization dedicated to continued ferry service in the New Orleans area, the city’s first public ferry began running from Jackson Square to Patterson Street in Algiers in 1827. A second ferry from the French Quarter, later Canal Street, to Algiers began operation seven years later, followed in 1858 by a third line that transported people and goods from Esplanade Avenue to Verret Street in Algiers. This third ferry, according to the Friends of the Ferry’s brief history of New Orleans ferries, later became the railroad “transfer ferry” seen here that crossed the river from Elysian Fields to the Southern Pacific yard in Algiers.
Ferrying a train across the river was a time-consuming job. Train workers had to uncouple the train and load four to six cars at a time aboard the ferry, ship them across the river where the train was reassembled car by car before it could finally move on. Some railroad ferries, such as the Carrier seen here, operated its own steam power while others were no more than large barges powered across the river by tugboats.
By the early 1930s, the Friend’s history continues, the city had six ferries, including two for railroads – the Southern Pacific and the Walnut Street Ferry crossing from Audubon Park to Westwego. The city now has only two ferries, one from Canal Street to Algiers Point and the second from Chalmette to Lower Algiers. Railroad ferries became obsolete beginning in 1935 with the opening of the Huey Long Bridge that included a railroad trestle for trains heading east and west.
