Beginning 1835, over several years, at least 10, possibly more, of these built at N. O. & C. RR. Co. car shop in Carrollton.
In 1834, the N. O. & C. RR. Co. bought a two-axle double deck car, named “Orleans”, from the Pontchartrain RR Co. It was one of four such built for the P. RR. Co. by the Worsdell Carriage Works in 1831, exact replicas of cars built for the Liverpool & Manchester Ry. by the same builder (a father and son proprietorship). Exporters Gordon, Forstall & Co. handled the order and this name may appear on the Worsdell records instead of the P. RR. The same may be true with LMR records.
N. O. & C. RR. Co. engineer Charles Zimpel authorized the construction of track, buildings, and ordering and/or building of all rolling stock. Engineers Thomas Harper and George Merrick were contracted from the start (their firm built another “street railroad” in New Orleans in 1836, the Orleans Street RR., and probably planned the building of passenger equipment for both the N. O. & C. RR. Co. and the O. S. RR.).
These double deck streetcars were perhaps the first such equipment designed for street railway use in the United States. While the New York & Harlem RR in New York City began service in 1832, the country's first street railway, their equipment was designed by Stephenson for railroad use. These also were three compartment two axle types easily adopted for street railway use.
The N. O. & C. RR. Co. used these cars on all their streetcar lines 1835-1868, until the new Stephenson bobtail cars replaced them. This double deck car was the railroad's “standard” car although fewer numbers of different types were used at times. See text p. c.
Note: Pedestal mounts may not have been used initially, but could have replaced leaf spring arrangement. Earliest railway carriages used metal leaf springs; some even had layers of hide strips!
