NOLA History: Home for the Holidays via Train

Traveling home for the holidays didn’t always involve full-body-scans, “enhanced pat-downs” and taking off your shoes.  In these days of intense security screening at airports, it’s nice to take a look back at a time when getting home to New Orleans was much less stressful.

Since 1892, the Louisville & Nashville and Southern Railroad companies operated trains from New York to New Orleans.  Southern Railway operated the “Crescent Limited” from 1925 to 1934.  The Crescent Limited was a luxury, all-Pullman (private-cabin sleeping cars) train, painted in dark green and detailed with gold leaf.  The Great Depression forced Southern to discontinue the luxury run.  The railroad added coach cars to the consist (a set of vehicles forming a train) and renamed the train the “Southern Crescent.”  Southern ran the Crescent until passenger rail operations were taken over by Amtrak in the 1970s.  Amtrak runs the Crescent to this day.  In the above photo from June of 1978, you can see an early run of the “Amtrak Crescent” still using Southern’s equipment.

Arlo Guthrie immortalized “the train they call the City of New Orleans ” with his recording of Steve Goodman’s tune, but it was the Illinois Central’s “Panama Limited“ that was the luxury way to get from Chicago to New Orleans.  While the “City” was the consist that included coach cars offering lower fares, the Panama Limited entered service as an all-Pullman train on February 4, 1911.  The train took its name from the anticipated opening of the Panama Canal that year.  At the time, this name made a lot of sense for a train heading to New Orleans, since the Port of New Orleans was the major port of entry for visitors and commerce from Central and South America for decades. The distance between Chicago and Union Station, New Orleans (now the Union Passenger Terminal) was covered by the Panama Limited in eighteen hours. In addition to the Chicago-NOLA consist, the train also included sleeper cars that connected through to Gulfport, Little Rock, and San Antonio (at various times during the history of the line).

The above photo shows what riding in style really meant. The interior of a Pullman car on the Panama Limited included a “drawing room” for relaxation, as well as private sleeping compartments. Closed-vestibule connections between the cars enabled passengers to easily walk to the club or dining cars. Pullman cars were built, serviced and staffed by the Pullman Company of Chicago, no matter which railroad pulled them. You can see one of the “Pullman Porters,” one of the most stable jobs an African-American man could obtain in the middle of the 20th Century, in the background of the photo.

The Panama Limited was well-known not only for the luxury of the Pullmans, but also for the quality of its dining services. The diner cars on the Panama Limited had a New Orleans French Quarter theme. The food was first-class, the kind of quality and service you would expect as you headed to the Vieux Carre and the magic of New Orleans. The Panama Limited, along with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Broadway Limited” was one of the last Pullman-only consists in operation in the 1960s; Illinois Central discontinued the line in 1967. The railroad continued the coach-consist City of New Orleans, and Amtrak continues to run the “City” to this day.

Coming to New Orleans from the west in style meant taking the Sunset Limited. Operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Sunset Limited covered the distance between Los Angeles and New Orleans in two and a half days. Inaugurated in 1894, the Sunset Limited ran as an all-Pullman consist until 1930. Even after the addition of coach cars (so SP could offer less-expensive fares during the Great Depression), the Sunset Limited was still considered to be one of the classiest trains in the country.

One of the high points of the journey to New Orleans on the Sunset Limited was crossing the Mississippi River via the Huey P. Long bridge, just to the west of the city.

From the east coast, west coast, or the Second City, train travel to New Orleans was a class act!

Tagged as: air travel, Airports, Amtrak, Crescent City, Crescent Limited, Enhanced Pat-Down, French Quarter, History, Lake Pontchartrain, Louisville and Nashville Railroad, New Orleans, Panama Canal, Port of New Orleans, Pullman Cars, Pullman Porters, Southern Railroad, Sunset Limited, The City of New Orleans, train travel, vieux carre