I have always liked Steve Goodman’s 1971 hit, “Riding’ on the City of New Orleans.” It’s a romanticized song based on a train ride he took from Chicago to New Orleans. It has been covered by Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson and is a country/folk classic. Living in Chicago, I always thought that I’d like to take that ride and recently I had the chance.
A business meeting in New Orleans gave me the perfect opportunity to fulfill my dream, which became more like a nightmare. The song was written in 1971 and I took the ride 54 years later. A few things have changed. According to the song, the romantic train was run by Illinois Central back then, but now it’s run by Amtrak, which offers no romanticizing at all.
On Amtrak, you have three classes of travel. Coach class gives you a seat. A roomette gives you two chairs that face each other. At night, those chairs turn into a bed and another one drops down from the ceiling. So you have an upper and lower berth just like you’ve seen in old Laurel and Hardy movies.
Since my wife was with me, we opted for the first class treatment of a room with a bathroom. This is very important if you have to pee during the night and don’t want to bounce down the hall to the public facilities. Our “room” was the approximate size of a mini van with a small sofa that transformed into a single bed. Another sleeping level was available in the upper bunk that lowered from the ceiling, but neither of us wanted to go up there so we both slept on the single bed…just like in college. But that was then and this is now and a person needs their space.
On top of this, the train was moving quite a bit from side to side, making me feel like I was in a pinball game as I bounced down the hallway. Occasionally the side to side movement was joined by an up and down movement to the point that I felt like a marble in a blender.
I have seen every James Bond movie and when he rode the train he used to have sex in his room. Not possible on Amtrak. Granted, I’ve done it in confined spaces the back seat of a Chevy…in 1971, but not with all of the movement. We feared that somebody was going to wind up on the floor, with their head next to the toilet. Note to self: Next time bring helmets.
Our bathroom was the size of a phone booth and contained both the toilet and the shower. The benefit of this configuration is that you can accomplish two hygiene routines at once. It’s called time management. And with all of the movement, if you go into the bathroom just use the toilet, make sure to use the seat belt to strap in.
Back to the song. It talks about “rolling past the houses, farms and fields, passin’ towns that have no names.” We certainly passed a lot of towns that had no names. Several of them had no people. But just about every house we passed as we traveled south welcomed us with a display of cars parked in the front yard. None of the cars ran but I guess cars in your yard is a status symbol in this part of the country. Four or more busted vehicles and you’re living’ large.
We got meals on this ride but food wasn’t mentioned in the song, and there’s a reason for that. The food on this trip was almost as good as airline food, back when airlines used to serve food. Maybe the airlines sold all of their unused food to Amtrak. That would explain a lot.
The food was not the major problem with the meal. The fact that the train is still bouncing along makes the process of eating a carefully learned skill. Imagine having a meal on a roller coaster and you see what I mean. The simple act of getting a fork full of food to your open mouth becomes one of aim and timing, because an ear full of pasta is no fun for anybody.
And the biggest challenge is drinking hot coffee in the bumper cars. One misstep and you are wearing it. Note to self: Don’t wear shorts when drinking coffee on a train.
As we went further into the south, the houses were replaced by trailers. Lots and lots of trailers. Again, not mentioned in the song.
We finally arrived in New Orleans singing, “Good mornin’ America, how are ya? Don’t you know me, I’m you native son. I’ve been bouncing around for 18 hours. And I’m glad I’m finally here and it’s finally done.”
It was an interesting adventure and I asked my wife if she wanted to take the train back. Needless to say, we flew home.
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