City of New Orleans
City of New Orleans is the name of a daily long-distance passenger train operated by the US railroad company Amtrak on a 1,490 kilometer route between Chicago in Illinois and New Orleans in Louisiana . From the start of operation in 1947 until Amtrak was founded in 1971, the train was operated by the Illinois Central Railroad on the same route. The travel time is 19.5 hours. The train was best known for the folk song of the same name from 1972, which is dedicated to the train.
From 1971 to 1981 the City of New Orleans did not drive at all, after which it replaced the Panama Limited on the route , which Amtrak discontinued in 1981. There are double-decker superliner cars, sleeping cars, a dining car and a panorama car on the train. To honor the connection to the city of New Orleans, the dining car offers Cajun cuisine , and an occasional jazz band plays on the train.
history
1947 to 1971
The City of New Orleans was launched as a daytime counterpart to the nighttime Pullman Panama Limited train, which ran on the New Orleans - Chicago long-distance mainline. The Panama Limited was Illinois Central's flagship train and was primarily intended to attract travelers with money and style. After the success of Panama Limited, especially with wealthy Americans, the City of New Orleans was to become a “streamliner for the people”. The train was thus the successor to the steam-powered Creole. While the City of New Orleans needed 16 hours for the route with Chicago - New Orleans with 25 intermediate stops in 1947, the Creole had needed a little more than 24 hours for the same route. The Creole lagged far behind the City of New Orleans in terms of comfort.
Like Panama Limited, the entire train was painted in the striking brown-yellow / orange of Illinois Central. Compared to the Creole, the cars and locomotives were significantly lighter, the steam locomotive was replaced by a diesel locomotive of the EMD E 7 series . In addition to heavyweight wagons that were converted in Burnside and taken over by the Creole, the City of New Orleans also pulled new wagons according to the Pullmann standard. Illinois Central ordered a total of 28 cars for two trains, and branch lines to St. Louis and Louisville . The first train ran on April 27, 1947.
The daytime connection was considerably cheaper than the Panama Limited, which is why the train soon became an important part of the Great Migration of African Americans from the southern United States to the north. While the Panama Limited was mainly used by business travelers from New Orleans and Chicago, the passengers of the City of New Orleans came from the rural areas in which the train had stops. In 1960, Illinois Central added more passenger cars, and in 1967 it added a panorama car with a panoramic roof. At the same time, however, the steadily deteriorating condition of the tracks meant that the train could no longer keep its 16-hour journey time.
From 1971
With the establishment of the US long-distance passenger transport company Amtrak on May 1, 1971, all trains between Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans except for Panama Limited were discontinued. Amtrak operated the City of New Orleans for a few months before it came to an end for the time being. It was not until 1981 that Amtrak renamed the night train, which was then running, to the City of New Orleans, which is now much better known thanks to the song of the same name, and has been operating the route under this name ever since.
On September 10, 1995, the route between Memphis and Jackson was changed slightly. The route was moved from the Grenada District to the Yazoo District. Amtrak was forced to shut down service south of Memphis because of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana in August 2005. Operations resumed on October 8, 2005.
Route details
Railway companies
The routes used by the City of New Orleans were once part of the Illinois Central Railroad System and are now owned by the Canadian National Railway .
Breakpoints
From North to south:
Songs
The City of New Orleans has been recognized in several blues songs. In 1953 Sonny Boy Williamson II and William Lowe wrote a song City of New Orleans , which Sonny Boy Williamson recorded. The two had used the Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans train to go to Houston for recordings. They recorded the song in Houston. The song Special Streamline by Bukka White is also dedicated to this train and tries to recreate a journey on the train acoustically. For Sunnyland Slim , the train served as the namesake for a song in which he describes the separation from his partner. This took the City of New Orleans to leave it.
The folk song City of New Orleans describes a journey on this train at the end of the heyday of the American railways. The song was written and recorded by Steve Goodman in 1971 , but it was not until 1972 when Arlo Guthrie's version was a worldwide success. Many other well-known folk and country artists such as Johnny Cash , John Denver or Willie Nelson also recorded the song.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Mike Schafer, Joe Welsh: Streamliners: A History of the Railroad Icon MBI Publishing Company, 2002 ISBN 0-7603-1371-7 , p. 117
- ↑ a b Steve Cheseborough: Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009 ISBN 1-60473-124-9 , p. 13
- ↑ a b c Jim Cox: Rails Across Dixie: A History of Passenger Trains in the American South McFarland, 2010 ISBN 0-7864-4528-9 , p. 119
- ^ Tom Murray: Illinois Central Railroad Voyageur Press, 2006 ISBN 0-7603-2254-6 , p. 91
