NativeSon5859
Conductor
I wrote this one a while back...hope yall enjoy.
December, 1997
I found myself driving home from college every weekend. Not that I particularly enjoyed the 4.5 hour drive, which sometimes became five thanks to traffic. No, I did the drive just to have something to do. Let’s face it, Ruston, Louisiana doesn’t exactly have a lot going on duringthe weekends. Not much at all really. So after class ended on Friday’s at 3pm, I packed up a few things and hit the road…literally.
Eventually, after making the drive pretty much on a weekly basis for the first couple of months, I had a vision. And what a vision it was. “Why not take Amtrak home”? I asked myself. Well, Amtrak didn’t serve Ruston….but they did serve Jackson Mississippi, a city which I had to drive through to get home anyway.
This intrigued me even more since the train operating the Jackson-New Orleans run, the City of New Orleans, was recently upgraded to bi-level Superliner equipment. Out of all the previous train trips I had been on growing up, not one of them was on a Superliner train.
So, I bought a ticket…only around $17 each way…and off to the Jackson train station I went. It was about a 2 hour and 20 minute drive from my dorm to the station, which wasn’t exactly in a great part of town. I parked my truck in the lot adjacent to it, hoping and praying that it would be there when I got back the next day.
Train #59 was due to arrive into the Jackson station at 11:00am, with a departure just minutes later. At roughly 10:55am they made the call: “passengers please proceed to the train platform for the arrival of Amtrak train 59 the City of New Orleans with service to New Orleans”. After ascending a creepy staircase, I, along with the twenty or so other passengers, waited for the train to come into view.
Moments later, I saw a sight which I had yet to see. And what a sight it was.
Powered by two P42 locomotives, the City of New Orleans, in all its Superliner glory, cruised past me. I could not believe the sheer size of those cars and they came to a stop. Only a moment later, the conductor popped out of one of the coaches. “All aboard!”
As I walked inside the 16 foot-high coach, my only thought was “this is so friggin cool!” Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly it…but it was close. I proceeded up the narrow staircase and picked out my seat, which I found to be both huge and comfortable. I just closed my eyes for a second, taking it all in. Before I knew it….we started moving.
It was a wierd sensation, being that high up and all. After all, my previous Amtrak experiences were all on Amfleet and Heritage coaches, all considerably lower than the Superliners. To say the least, I got used to it quickly. After the conductor came around taking tickets…and after Arlo Guthrie stopped singing “City of New Orleans” in my cd player…. I decided it was time to go check out the train. And since I was hungry, I thought the dining car would be a perfect place to start.
I sat down, along with two other people, at a comfortable booth halfway down the car. My two boothmates had ridden the City all the way down from Chicago for a weekend in New Orleans. They apparently were regulars of the train. I explained to them how it was my first time on the City since 93. When they asked me if I ever went up in the Dome Coach that used to ply this route, I said “yes of course.” That made them jealous I think. Anyway back to the meal. I ordered the red beans and rice. Delicious stuff. By the time the meal was over, we pulled into the Brookhaven station stop….just two more to go, then home.
I next made my way to the Sightseer Lounge Car. This is without question the social center of the train. I had seen pictures of these cars before, but they didn’t do it justice. I was pretty much blown away by the spectacular view. Perhaps not as great as the old Dome Coach on the City of New Orleans back in the early 90’s, but still, very impressive. They were showing a movie….which I counted maybe three people watching. Most, like me, were glued to the windows. I stayed in the Sightseer Lounge all the way past the McComb and Hammond station stops. We had to pull to a side track around this area to allow the northbound City, train #58, to pass. Passing Hammond, we began the “initial approach” into New Orleans, skirting the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, crossing a drawbridge over the good-sized Pass Manchac waterway, than crossing the Bonnet Carre spillway on 20 foot-high wooden trestles.
I decided it was time to return to my coach seat as we passed the threshold of runway 10 at New Orleans International Airport. Only about 15 minutes to go until we would reach the station.
Sitting in my seat, watching the suburbs roll past, I could only think of one thing: thank god for Amtrak. The four hour trip went by all too quickly. I made sure I would always remember my first ride on a Superliner. Without a doubt, it was my best Amtrak experience yet.
December, 1997
I found myself driving home from college every weekend. Not that I particularly enjoyed the 4.5 hour drive, which sometimes became five thanks to traffic. No, I did the drive just to have something to do. Let’s face it, Ruston, Louisiana doesn’t exactly have a lot going on duringthe weekends. Not much at all really. So after class ended on Friday’s at 3pm, I packed up a few things and hit the road…literally.
Eventually, after making the drive pretty much on a weekly basis for the first couple of months, I had a vision. And what a vision it was. “Why not take Amtrak home”? I asked myself. Well, Amtrak didn’t serve Ruston….but they did serve Jackson Mississippi, a city which I had to drive through to get home anyway.
This intrigued me even more since the train operating the Jackson-New Orleans run, the City of New Orleans, was recently upgraded to bi-level Superliner equipment. Out of all the previous train trips I had been on growing up, not one of them was on a Superliner train.
So, I bought a ticket…only around $17 each way…and off to the Jackson train station I went. It was about a 2 hour and 20 minute drive from my dorm to the station, which wasn’t exactly in a great part of town. I parked my truck in the lot adjacent to it, hoping and praying that it would be there when I got back the next day.
Train #59 was due to arrive into the Jackson station at 11:00am, with a departure just minutes later. At roughly 10:55am they made the call: “passengers please proceed to the train platform for the arrival of Amtrak train 59 the City of New Orleans with service to New Orleans”. After ascending a creepy staircase, I, along with the twenty or so other passengers, waited for the train to come into view.
Moments later, I saw a sight which I had yet to see. And what a sight it was.
Powered by two P42 locomotives, the City of New Orleans, in all its Superliner glory, cruised past me. I could not believe the sheer size of those cars and they came to a stop. Only a moment later, the conductor popped out of one of the coaches. “All aboard!”
As I walked inside the 16 foot-high coach, my only thought was “this is so friggin cool!” Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly it…but it was close. I proceeded up the narrow staircase and picked out my seat, which I found to be both huge and comfortable. I just closed my eyes for a second, taking it all in. Before I knew it….we started moving.
It was a wierd sensation, being that high up and all. After all, my previous Amtrak experiences were all on Amfleet and Heritage coaches, all considerably lower than the Superliners. To say the least, I got used to it quickly. After the conductor came around taking tickets…and after Arlo Guthrie stopped singing “City of New Orleans” in my cd player…. I decided it was time to go check out the train. And since I was hungry, I thought the dining car would be a perfect place to start.
I sat down, along with two other people, at a comfortable booth halfway down the car. My two boothmates had ridden the City all the way down from Chicago for a weekend in New Orleans. They apparently were regulars of the train. I explained to them how it was my first time on the City since 93. When they asked me if I ever went up in the Dome Coach that used to ply this route, I said “yes of course.” That made them jealous I think. Anyway back to the meal. I ordered the red beans and rice. Delicious stuff. By the time the meal was over, we pulled into the Brookhaven station stop….just two more to go, then home.
I next made my way to the Sightseer Lounge Car. This is without question the social center of the train. I had seen pictures of these cars before, but they didn’t do it justice. I was pretty much blown away by the spectacular view. Perhaps not as great as the old Dome Coach on the City of New Orleans back in the early 90’s, but still, very impressive. They were showing a movie….which I counted maybe three people watching. Most, like me, were glued to the windows. I stayed in the Sightseer Lounge all the way past the McComb and Hammond station stops. We had to pull to a side track around this area to allow the northbound City, train #58, to pass. Passing Hammond, we began the “initial approach” into New Orleans, skirting the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, crossing a drawbridge over the good-sized Pass Manchac waterway, than crossing the Bonnet Carre spillway on 20 foot-high wooden trestles.
I decided it was time to return to my coach seat as we passed the threshold of runway 10 at New Orleans International Airport. Only about 15 minutes to go until we would reach the station.
Sitting in my seat, watching the suburbs roll past, I could only think of one thing: thank god for Amtrak. The four hour trip went by all too quickly. I made sure I would always remember my first ride on a Superliner. Without a doubt, it was my best Amtrak experience yet.
