Seen today (6/25) in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3881991,00.html
End of the line?
Budget barriers threaten to derail Amtrak and fabled
City of New Orleans
By Bartholomew Sullivan
sullivanb@shns.com
June 24, 2005
Nighttime on the City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half-way home, we’ll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
– Steve Goodman, ‘‘The City of New Orleans’’
WASHINGTON – Arlo Guthrie sings ‘‘The City of New
Orleans’’ somewhere just about every night.
The classic song about the train that’s got the
“disappearing railroad blues” captures the spirit of
an America that, when it was written in 1970, seemed
to be fading fast, Guthrie said. Now, a congressional
proposal to end Amtrak’s City of New Orleans service,
and most long-distance Amtrak service across the
country, has Guthrie hoping it’s not too late to save
a cultural icon.
In 1979, he rode the now-defunct Montrealer from his
home in western Massachusetts to Washington’s Union
Station and played a protest concert to stop a Carter
administration plan to cut passenger rail service. He
told The Commercial Appeal on Friday that it may be
time to ride from the Windy City to the Big Easy to
save The City of New Orleans. In the same breath, he
wondered if Congress would even notice.
‘‘They’re backed up against the wall with so many
other crazy things going on that the fate of the
nation’s train system is probably not on their to-do
list,’’ he said. ''But it should be. I can’t believe
they’re that preoccupied that they can’t actually sit
down and reason it out and find a w