I am interesed in getting some opinions on a situation that we have going on here in New Orleans. In 1964 the Canal St. streetcar line was removed and left the city with only the St. Charles line. Last Thursday, the first streetcar in 40 years ran a test run on the newly reinstalled Canal Street line. Regular service is scheduled to start on December 6th. A spur route along Carrollton Ave to the museum of art in City Park is scheduled to open shortly after that. Plans have been on going to build another spur route along N. Rampart Street in the French Quarter that will travel to my neighborhood in the Bywater to Desire St and thus be call the Desire Street line. There is a sticking point. Along the route the streetcar line must cross Norfork Southerns rail line at Press Street. According to newspaper accounts, Norfork is blocking this and is not willing to cooperate at the crossing. This crossing is a two track grade crossing at the head of a yard. Norfork is always doing switching operations backing up and moving real slow across the crossing and even into the lesser streets in the neighborhood. There are no fast trains at all. The street that the streetcars would be traveling along is a major commuter street and the railroad must contend with lots of exisiting vehicular commuter and truck traffic. I was courious if anyone would know of what types of issure would be involved with streetcars crossing a railline or why a railroad would be opposed to such a crossing.