Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, Vol. 9, p. 156, 1855 featured the above picture signed by Frank Bellew, which purported to show a New Orleans & Carrollton double deck horsecar. The picture seems to be based on the one shown below, which appeared in Illustrated London News of Nov. 9, 1853, showing a DD car with almost identical side-mounted steps. The latter car actually inaugurated the first tramway in Paris, promoted by Joseph Alphonse Loubat, and opened that year.
There are several reasons to doubt the authenticity of the Bellew picture. Frank Bellew wrote and illustrated a satirical journal in New York City called the Picayune (not to be confused with the New Orleans newspaper called the Daily Picayune). The picture in Ballou's is very different in style from Bellew's usual work in his Picayune, and is strikingly similar to the picture of the Paris DD car in the Illustrated London News. There is no other evidence known to the author of a NO&C DD car having steps on the side, as shown here. Our best judgment is that no such car ever ran on the NO&C.
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