One of the New Orleans streetcars moves along Canal Street Friday in downtown New Orleans. The city is working to repair the St. Charles line.

New Orleans ? The St. Charles streetcar line – the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world – may be rumbling along at least a short strip of its namesake avenue by the end of the year for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Workers are repairing the system that supports the overhead electrical lines that power the streetcars.

“We’re hoping that if things go smoothly, we’ll have cars running along the stretch of St. Charles from Canal Street to Lee Circle,” said Rosalind Blanco Cook, Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman. “The rest of the line won’t be ready before the end of 2007.”

That initial stretch is only nine blocks long.

The old green streetcars have been carrying passengers through the streets of New Orleans since 1835, but since Hurricane Katrina wrecked the city Aug. 29, 2005, they have been running only on the Canal Street and Riverfront lines.

All but one of the new red streetcars that ran on the Canal Street and Riverfront lines before Katrina were wiped out by flooding at a storage barn.

The $1.25 fare resumed on buses and streetcars in August for the first times since Hurricane Katrina.