AMTRAK Experience 2
New Orleans LA to Memphis TN

We got to the New Orleans station with about 40 minutes to spare and this was good as there was already a queue for Coach (economy) forming. While Joanne went off to get lunch I got to talking to lady and a man from Jackson, state of Mississippi. Before we got to board we already had an invitation to come to dinner with them and have corn bread and experience Southern hospitality. It would have been nice but Memphis was calling.

This train is called The City of New Orleans and runs overnight leaving New Orleans at 1.45pm arriving in Chicago at 9.30am the next morning. It has First sleepers and Coach recliner seats with fold down tray tables, a leg rest and a huge amount of leg room. We are on the last carriage and it appears that most in the carriage are travelling to Jackson or Memphis. The carriages are double decker with most of the seating on the upper deck where we are. There are wide expansive windows to look and admire the ever changing scenery as we travel along. There is an observation carriage with special seating and even wider windows even in the roof. There is a small cafe for snacks and drinks and a dining car. We have just made reservations for the7pm sitting in which they sit you opposite strangers in a "community seating" arrangements. We are continuing our theme of eating our way through the USA!

The train left New Orleans on time and slowly glided out of the station and for over an hour we were travelling alongside the road we were on yesterday, over swamps and the huge lake. We walked along the carriages and observed that the train was only about half full. Joanne got talking to Jack the cafe manager (26 years old) who wishes he was somewhere else.

The train has a maximum speed of 79 miles per hour but had to slow or stop to permit opposite trains to pass at sidings. It was a quiet journey with little noise from the passengers. The train made three short stops before the 15 minute stop at Jackson MS. The conductor announced that this would be the first smokers stop and that smoking on Amtrak is not permitted. Offenders caught smoking would be off-loaded at the next road crossing which would become their new destination!

We arrived at Jackson at 5.15pm and Joanne and I got off so that we could tick off another US State visited - Mississippi. As we were taking happy snaps he lady we had met earlier came up to us and gave us a container of peanuts, and a "moon pie", which according to the wrapper is "The Original Marshmallow Sandwich". Another example of Southern Hospitality.

Many passengers boarded the train at Jackson including many southern families. There was a different feel in the carriage until the new arrivals all settled down. Out of Jackson and into the evening. Dinner next.

Dinner was another experience. We sat opposite a young lady from Chicago - a bar waitress. She knew very little about Australia so we tried to enlighten her a little. I had a vege pasta dish and Joanne the light option which was a piece of steak. Nothing special but an experience none-the-less. A young girl from Australia was also in the dining room and as she walked past she said "where are you two cockatoos from?". She had overheard our accents and thought it sounded beautiful. We are now about 2 hours out of Memphis. The surprising this about this train journey is that our passenger train seems to always give way to freight trains. They go flashing past us at the sidings while we are stationary.

So as we are about to cross over into Tennessee, it's good night from the South.