Chicago to Memphis via City of New Orleans

Hello,

I am looking to take a train from Chicago to Memphis early next month. Initially, I was going to leave Chicago at 8 PM, arrive in Memphis at 6:30 AM and then catch a Greyhound bus to Little Rock that same afternoon. Now I am thinking about spending the night in Memphis and leaving for Little Rock via Greyhound the next day. Anyway, have there been any service problems as of late with the City of New Orleans? I was reading there was some flooding last year resulting in serivce disruption so obviously I want to be confident that I'll be able to get down to Memphis without too much of a problem.

Thanks,

nos

nos said:

Hello,

I am looking to take a train from Chicago to Memphis early next month. Initially, I was going to leave Chicago at 8 PM, arrive in Memphis at 6:30 AM and then catch a Greyhound bus to Little Rock that same afternoon. Now I am thinking about spending the night in Memphis and leaving for Little Rock via Greyhound the next day. Anyway, have there been any service problems as of late with the City of New Orleans? I was reading there was some flooding last year resulting in serivce disruption so obviously I want to be confident that I'll be able to get down to Memphis without too much of a problem.

Thanks,

nos

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There is a train that runs direct from Chicago to Little Rock, if that helps.

MrFSS said:

There is a train that runs direct from Chicago to Little Rock, if that helps.

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Correct, but I like to see new states and Tennessee would be a new state for me. Tennessee would be one of 8 new states to see on this trip which is why it'd be cool to take this route before going on to Little Rock.

nos said:

Hello,

I am looking to take a train from Chicago to Memphis early next month. Initially, I was going to leave Chicago at 8 PM, arrive in Memphis at 6:30 AM and then catch a Greyhound bus to Little Rock that same afternoon. Now I am thinking about spending the night in Memphis and leaving for Little Rock via Greyhound the next day. Anyway, have there been any service problems as of late with the City of New Orleans? I was reading there was some flooding last year resulting in serivce disruption so obviously I want to be confident that I'll be able to get down to Memphis without too much of a problem.

Thanks,

nos

Click to expand...

Well, none of us can vouch for the weather, but the City of New Orleans has enjoyed decent on-time performance (OTP) recently. According to Amtrak's website OTP for May was 87.1% and 89.0% over the past year. The southbound train (#59) is even better than that, at 93.5% and 90.5%. Anecdotally, I rode the CONO this past January and we were on time into Memphis in both directions. Memphis is a major service stop and Amtrak has a lot of time built into the schedule there. I'd say about half to two-thirds of the passengers from Chicago get off there. An afternoon bus connection to Little Rock should be perfectly safe.

Mackensen said:

Well, none of us can vouch for the weather, but the City of New Orleans has enjoyed decent on-time performance (OTP) recently. According to Amtrak's website OTP for May was 87.1% and 89.0% over the past year. The southbound train (#59) is even better than that, at 93.5% and 90.5%. Anecdotally, I rode the CONO this past January and we were on time into Memphis in both directions. Memphis is a major service stop and Amtrak has a lot of time built into the schedule there. I'd say about half to two-thirds of the passengers from Chicago get off there. An afternoon bus connection to Little Rock should be perfectly safe.

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It sounds like this route is fairly reliable. Is there a lot to see and do in Memphis? I was thinking about spending a night there so I could see downtown and whatnot without having to rush but that depends if there are some good sites to see in the city.

Last years flooding that shut down the City of New Orleans for several days occurred in western Kentucky as a result of high water in the Ohio and Mississippi River channels. This year southern Illinois and Kentucky are in drought conditions (13.5 inches behind in annual rainfall) and there is no pressure on the rivers to the north of this area. You are clear to high ball straight thru to Memphis !!

There is good food all over Memphis. The civil rights museum is near the Amtrak station. The busses leave from a different place north of downtown Memphis iirc. The bus station and train station are connected by a street car.

The Mississippi River. A coupletely different river than it is north of Cairo IL.

Mud Island. Haven't been there for quite a few years, but it had some really nice exhibits and other things of interest relating to the river.

I have decided to spend the night in Memphis so that I will be able to explore and enjoy the city at a relaxed pace without having to rush. Thanks for the positive input, everyone.

The train to Memphis? And then spend the night at a nearby hotel?

Just avoid seeing the 1989 Jim Jarmusch film "Mystery Train" or you may decide otherwise....... :lol:

Just kidding. Be sure to say hello to Elvis at Graceland while you're there....

I am a bit perplexed with the ticket pricing for Amtrak. The ticket from Chicago to Memphis before any discounts into next month is $124. After summer it goes down to $99. However, buying a ticket from Chicago to St. Louis all year round costs only $24 before any discounts?!?!? I realize Memphis is further from Chicago than St. Louis but proportionately you would think the ticket would cost like $45. Why is there such a large difference in pricing for these locations??

I think there is a capacity issue on the Chicago Memphis route since it is served by one train a day. Chicago st Louis is served by several trains in each direction. If you book Chicago st Louis on the Texas eagle the fare will be higher.

nos said:

I am a bit perplexed with the ticket pricing for Amtrak. The ticket from Chicago to Memphis before any discounts into next month is $124. After summer it goes down to $99. However, buying a ticket from Chicago to St. Louis all year round costs only $24 before any discounts?!?!? I realize Memphis is further from Chicago than St. Louis but proportionately you would think the ticket would cost like $45. Why is there such a large difference in pricing for these locations??

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Demand and Supply, and what the market can bear. Amtrak prices the tickets to the maximum level that a market will bear, so it is not dependent on number of miles you will travel.

Same is the case with airlines. A few months back I got Dallas-Philadelphia-State College(PA) flight $80 cheaper than just Dallas-Philadelphia on the same flight! You'd think flying a person on two flights would cost more fuel to the airline than flying on only one of those two flights, but that's not how fares are charged! It is a common sense defying pricing structure at work.

I think that the $24 Chicago-St. Louis fare is still one of the best deals on Amtrak. For $24 I could take a 1 1/2 hour ride to Fullerton while the midwesterners get a 5 1/2 hour trip. As was said, look at the Texas Eagle prices for the same route, but with only a few days left, maybe same day. The check the price. It will be closer to the Memphis price, at least a little closer. And I can tell that the base coach far for CHI-MEM is $99, since when I checked for today the seats are all sold out but the roomettes are $186. It says that the total would be $285, so $99 is the price that a decent amount of people are paying. For today, the TE is $66, and the Illini-bus connection is $66 as well. So it is not always cheap, those are only corridor fares. You will see fares lower when a corridor train from Carbondale is extended to Memphis to make a day train to Chicago.

Actually a big part of the reason that St. Louis is so much cheaper is the fact that the State of Illinois helps to subsidize the prices.

No one helps Amtrak to subsidize Chicago to Memphis, so in addition to the longer distance, it costs more.

Chicago is and always has been the largest single origin/destination for Memphis passengers by rail. Can't speak of earlier, but post WW2 it was probably the larger than all other routes combined. It was certainly so by the early 60's and the only route left at the time of Amtrak start up and still had either two ro three trains at that time. In the early 60's the ICRR still ahd 5 trains north out of Memphis, and 4 trains south, while no other route had more than 2 trains. The four trains south were all smaller than the 5 north. I have seen, in the early 60's, four coaches and one diesel added to the northbound City of New Orleans.

To have an additional sleeper and coach or two north of Memphis would seem to be a very logical thing for Amtrak to do. For that matter, extending one of the Illinois trains, 391 south and 392 north to Memphis would seem to be a very good idea. It would arrive about 6:30pm southbound and leave about 11:30am northbound. That is less than an hour slower than the late 50's early 60's City of New Orleans, but looking at the current schedules it appears that it would be reasonably achievable. There was always a large demand for a Chicago Memphis day train before the erratic timekeeping of ICG killed it off.

Before I-57 was built, the IC 'Main Line of Mid America', was indeed a busy 'racetrack', with partial operation at 100 mph. I used to be a regular rider almost every weekend, between Rantoul and Chicago while stationed at Chanute AFB in 1966 and 1967. 1967 was when Paul Reistrup introduced his 'Mini-Corridor Service' between Carbondale and Chicago. There was tremendous ridership from Champaign (U of I), and from Rantoul (Chanute) at that time. Now Rantoul is almost a ghost town in comparison....