New Orleans-ism: The Streetcar

Normally, historical monuments are pretty stationary, but in the Crescent City, they also travel the streets of New Orleans all day, everyday. I'm talking about the streetcar, and you can use it to go from Uptown to Downtown and from Riverside to Lakeside  (which is how we measure directions here).

I've been commuting to work via the streetcar and I've noticed some fun facts:

         1. The Streetcar is not on time (unless you're counting on it to be late)

due to frequent stops, people paying for fare, traffic, tourists not knowing what they're doing, the streetcar gets pretty backed up.

        2.  If you are running late, and were counting on Fact 1 to be true, it will not be, because, you know, Murphy has rules. You will see the streetcar rolling away as you cross the street. 

     3.  There are tourist times and commuter times for the streetcar. Business hours vs. going out hours. You can easily see when a tourist has entered on a car dominated by commuters, and visa versa. (Hint: the tourists are the retired couples with maps and cameras.)

      4. When a streetcar is running extremely late, count on it being full. It's during these times that I suspect New Orleans is conducting social experiments: how many people can be stuffed into one oblong vehicle, chugging its way along St. Charles Avenue? 

     5. When this does happen, however, the driver might decide the streetcar is operating at maximum capacity and not stop. In these situations there is often one, or even two, streetcars right behind it. Usually the third is relatively empty. 

Does anyone else have streetcar stories or facts?