Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans"

 “Ridin' on the City of New Orleans”

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from the June 2012 Memphis Buff

(who borrowed liberally from other sources)

Perhaps the most popular train song ever written is “City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman. A hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972 on his album “Hobo's Lullaby”, it has remained an all time favorite some forty years later, joining such train songs as the “Chattanooga Choo Choo”(Benny Goodman, 1941) and the “Wabash Cannonball”(Roy Acuff, 1936) as a classic railroad song.

Steve Goodman - Photo by David Gans
- licensed under "Creative Commons "

I have imagined Steve Goodman aboard the southbound “City of New Orleans” shortly before Amtrak took over, in the observation/lounge car, busily observing and writing, capturing on paper the feeling of a train having “the disappearing railroad blues”. The real story is not that simple.

In 1965 Goodman, a native of Chicago, enrolled at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Il. Like a lot of other Chicago area U of I students, he regularly used the Illinois Central to commute between Chicago and Champaign. In 1967, towards the end of his two year off and on career as a student, he decided to skip class and remained on the “City of New Orleans” until it reached its namesake destination.

Shortly afterward, in a club in Chicago's Old Town, he related his adventure to Howard Primer, a high school chum, and was particularly animated when he talked about falling asleep on the return trip. “When he woke up”, as Primer relates Goodman’s story, “it was like he was in a surreal world: The sound of the train, the rhythm of the train, the swaying of the train, looking out the windows at the misty morning on the delta country. And he was talking about ‘Good morning, America.’” The two wrote the first lyrics of the “City of New Orleans” on a napkin that night, including the phrase “don't you know me, I'm your native son”. Some time later, Goodman would add “Good morning America, how are you”.

It wasn't until some three years later that the rest of the song came together. Goodman had dropped out of school to pursue his musical career, gotten married and in 1969 was diagnosed with leukemia. In April of 1970, he and his wife boarded the “City of New Orleans” on a chilly Monday morning to visit her grandmother in a nursing home near Mattoon, Il.

“Nancy was sleeping in the seat next to me. I just took out a sketchpad, and I looked out the window and wrote down everything I saw: junkyards, little towns that didn’t even have a sign to say what they were. Just out of Chicago, there was a bunch of old men standing around tin cans, warming themselves and waving. Nancy was still asleep after about an hour and a half, so I went down to the club car and ended up playing cards with a couple of old men.”

On that train ride, Goodman wrote two verses to add to the chorus he had written three years earlier. After his return to Chicago he added a third verse describing life inside the train; “pass he paper bag that holds the bottle” and “feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor”, etc.

Goodman first recorded the song on March 3, 1970 and was released on his album “Gathering at the Earl of Old Town”. John Denver had a version on his album “Aerie” released on December 4, 1971, just a few weeks after the train was cancelled by Amtrak. Neither version went anywhere.

At this point in his life Goodman was eking out a living recording jingles for TV ads (Dial Deodorant and Maybelline Blushing Eye Shadow were two of his accounts) and performing at local Chicago clubs. It was at one of these clubs that as fate would have it, Goodman met Arlo Guthrie.

Guthrie was sitting at the bar after doing a show, trying not to be noticed. The club owner approached Guthrie and said he would like him to listen to a “train” song in which might be interested. Guthrie replied angrily that he didn't like train songs, but the club owner assured him he wouldn't be disappointed and introduced Goodman to Guthrie.

Guthrie told Goodman to give him the tape, he would listen to it. Goodman replied that he didn't have a tape, but could sing it for him. This angered Guthrie even more, but he agreed with the stipulation that Goodman buy him a beer and finish the song before Arlo finished the beer. Guthrie would later say “one of the finer beers of my life”.

Arlo Guthrie's recording of “City of New Orleans” peaked at number 18 nationally and the rest, as they say, is history. The song has been recorded by at least eighty artists. Darcie Sanders, co-founder of Amazingrace, a cooperative in the Chicago suburb of Evanston that often hosted Goodman in concert, keenly observed that the song

“goes beyond classic into something archetypal that hooks into people so deeply that they’re moved, and they join in. . . . It’s the best outsider anthem anyone has ever written for America. We were the native sons and daughters, but maybe America didn’t know us or recognize us. Who has not felt that their life is disappearing? It’s the questioning, the trying to get closer, and yet the train is speeding away, the sense of the lost moment. That’s how a whole generation felt about their relationship with America and themselves as Americans.”

Original Lyrics by Steve Goodman

City of New Orleans© Turnpike Tom Music 1970

Original Lyrics by Steve Goodman

City of New Orleans© Turnpike Tom Music 1970

Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passin' towns that have no names
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Chorus
Good morning, America, how are you
Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

Dealin' cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, ain't no one keepin' score
Won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpet made of steam
Mothers with their babes asleep
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they dream
Chorus
Night time on The City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half way home, and we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea

And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his song again
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues
Final Chorus

Good night, America, how are you
Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

Repeat First Chorus

Good morning, America, how are you

Don't you know me, I'm your native son

I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

Free Admission

Free admission to Memphis Railroad and Trolley Museum during River Arts Fest.

Visit http://riverartsmemphis.org/ for Festival details. 

New Rock Island Terminal at Memphis

NEW FREIGHT TERMINALS AT MEMPHIS

(Reprinted from March 1915 Rock Island Employees Magazine)

New Memphis Freight House

The business at the new Memphis Freight Station has shown steady and healthy increase since its opening on July 6th, 1914, notwithstanding the unusual depression due to conditions abroad. The location of this station at Calhoun Fourth Sts. is an admirable one, despite the fact the territory was acquired after practically all other lines in Memphis had been established for years, and places us in closer touch with the wholesale district naturally shortening the haul from the warehouses to the station, and has made it possible for us to handle through carload traffic to and from other lines with greater promptness and satisfaction, due to points of interchange being closer together. The records will show that the new facilities have made it possible to handle greater volume of business more promptly, much cheaper, with greater ease, and apparently to the entire satisfaction of our patrons (the last claim being borne out by the absence of complaint).

New Memphis Freight House, Showing Driveway and Team Tracks.

Our old freight house facilities were located at the bottom of the hill just south of the Poplar street depot of the Illinois Central. While this was close to portion of the business district of Memphis for all incoming freight, it required hauling up this steep hill, which could only be accomplished by tacking, as in sail boat. The new freight house is very complete in every detail. It is one and two story building, the two story portion is of brick. The building is 46 feet wide, 484 feet long. The two story part is 155 feet long, the second floor being used for offices. The building has concrete foundation all exterior posts are of cast iron. The one story portion is covered with corrugated American ingot iron, which is especially pure iron.

The building is lighted with electric lights installed by our company force under Mr. Frank Roblin.

The working floors of the freight house are of asphalt mastic laid on subfloor of concrete, thus giving us floor that ought to last great many years with practically no expense. The space between the foundation walls 

being filled in, the floors can carry any load without thought of failure.

Office and Force, Memphis Freight House.

Total cost of the building was about $84,000. Parallel with the building is one of our standard transfer platforms 12 feet wide, 468 feet long. This cost $2,200. The office portion of the building is heated by steam which was installed by local contractors, the Fisher Heating Co.

W. L. Stout, Agent, Memphis, in His Private Office at New Freight House.

 Approximately the total expenditure in connection with this freight terminal was million dollars, including every thing from the purchase of property to the completed building and terminal yard, which covers more than three average city blocks, and which were originally occupied by cottages, ninety of which had to be removed to construct this facility. All of these houses were either moved off the property to new locations or razed. It required some 750 yards of grading to complete this work. The freight house is at the present time in and out bound. Later on when required we will build strictly out bound freight house on the other side of the teamway, which is 46 feet wide.

The first floor contains the cashier's office and cold storage room for storing perishable shipments in either hot or cold weather. The freight room floor contains freight room scales, two of which are equipped with the automatic dial scales. There are continuous vertical sliding doors on the team side so that the teams can line up continuously the full length of the house if necessary. On the track side the doors are parallel sliding doors so that an opening can be made any where the full length of the house to come opposite car door. All these doors are made of steel covered with corrugated ingot iron. Team driveway on the east side of the building is 46 feet wide and 1,100 feet long, is of paving blocks set on concrete base with pitch filler.

City Office, Rock Island Lines, at Memphis.

To protect teams standing at the freight house either taking or delivering loads, we have permanent 12 feet wide canopy the full length of the house as protection during stormy weather. This is great advantage, especially where it rains so continuously at times as it does in Memphis, and should be considerable help in securing business, as no other any freight house in Memphis has similar protection.

On the track side we have also another permanent canopy the full length of the house extending out to the center line of the car, which gives considerable protection to minimize the damaging of goods by weather elements.

One feature of this work was the sewage and drainage system that had to be installed in order to take care of the changed condition of grades caused by the track grading. This latter part of the work cost approximately $10,000. The railroad tracks leading into the freight yard had to cross Georgia avenue between Fourth and Wellington streets. At that point the street was lowered many feet, and concrete bridge had to be constructed. Special high steel towers had to be constructed at this point in order to elevate over our tracks the power wires from the power house that is located block distant.

Koehler Bros.-Fowler Construction Co. of Memphis laid all of the paving under the viaduct and for the teamways for the freight house.  

Casey's Railroad - - Gone?

Posted as background to Iowa Pacific Holdings recent acquisition of the Grenada Railway.

Casey's Railroad - - - - GONE?

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from June  2009 Memphis Buff)

“HOMEWOOD, Ill., May 13, 2009 – CN (TSX: CNR)(NYSE: CNI) today announced the completion of agreements to sell three Mississippi line segments to Grenada Railway, LLC and Natchez Railway, LLC both non-carrier affiliates of V&S Railway and A&K Railroad Materials. This deal transfers ownership of 252 miles of track and preserves rail service on the two longest of these rail lines for at least the next two years. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.“CN is pleased that this deal with Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway will allow these rail lines to remain in place serving Mississippi business,” said Jim Vena, CN's senior vice president, Southern Region. “CN will continue to offer interchange service to the new short lines, maintaining every customer's seamless access to the broader CN network.

Red: Lines Sold, Green: CN, Blue: KCS .

V&S Railway LLC operates successful short lines in Kansas and Colorado.”

This news release by the Canadian National Railroad probably signals the end of the line for the track that carried Casey Jones to his fabled end. The demise probably can be traced back to September 10^th, 1995. when Amtrak, due to the Illinois Central's reluctance to maintain passenger train standards over the district, rerouted the “City of New Orleans” over the IC's track through Greenwood, MS, leaving only local service for the line's dwindling customer base. The final blow for the Natchez line was the closing of International Paper's mill at Natchez.

Despite assurances in the news release that the new railroads “ will allow these lines to remain in place serving Mississippi business”, the parent of Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway is A&K Railway Materials, “the nation's leading supplier of new and used track materials” according to their website.

A&K's founder, president and majority shareholder, Kern W. Schumacher, began his career at the age of nineteen when he organized A&K Tie Company to salvage thousands of used railway ties being removed from the lower deck of the Oakland Bay Bridge in Oakland California. A&K purchased the redwood ties at .60 each and resold them to landscapers for $6.00 each.

In papers filed with the Surface Transportation Board, both the Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway are shown as “controlled by Mr. Schumacher”.

V&S Railway, is cited in the news release as operating “successful” short line railroads in Kansas and Colorado.

The Facts

In December of 2000 the V&S petitioned the STB to purchase a 41 mile segment of former ATSF trackage between Sun City and Attica, KS from the Central Kansas Railway. In May of 2003, the V&S petitioned to abandon 20 miles of the line between Sun City and Medicine Lodge. The remaining 22 miles of the line is still in use between a connection with the BNSF at Attica, KS, and Medicine Lodge where National Gypsum has a facility.

The V&S also operates a 5 mile switching line at Hutchinson KS, which it purchased from the Hutchinson and Northern Railway in 2006.

Another venture of the V&S is the Kern Valley Railroad. On October 31, 2001, The Kern Valley purchased the 30 mile line of the Trinidad Railway on Colorado with the express purpose of salvage, the Trinidad Railway already having filed for abandonment. Latest filings with the STB indicate that two miles of the line remain.

In 2008, V&S purchased the Gloster & Southern Railroad between Gloster, MS, and Slaughter, LA, from Georgia Pacific which owns an idled paper mill at Gloster.

In 1992, in conjunction with Michael Van Wagenen of Kyle Railways, Schumacher and Morris Kulmer, CFO of A&K, formed the Tulare Valley Railroad Company. TVR's original 158 miles has shrunk to 6.1 miles, with the rest of the line either being abandoned or sold to the San Joquin Valley Railroad. On March 12, 2009, TVR petitioned the STB to abandon the remainder of the railroad.

In 1999, the Canadian National Railroad transferred 145 miles of track to the Southern Manitoba Railway, an affiliate of the TVR. In March of 2006, the Southern Manitoba Railway applied to Manitoba's Motor Transport Board to discontinue operations over the last 78.6 miles of its line between Morris and Mariapolis, MB.

The 122 mile Colorado, Kansas and Pacific Railway was sold to V&S by the state of Colorado in December, 2005, for 10.35 million dollars, with a down payment of one million dollars with the remainder to be paid over a six year period.

In August of 2007 grain shippers were complaining of having to use trucks due to the railroads inability to supply cars and Colorado reported that it no payments had been received after the initial down payment. In 2006 a rail fan reported finding only two locomotives on the entire line, neither running and with rusty wheels and only five rail cars on line, four flats and a “5 Pack” intermodal spine car.

There are numerous other acquisitions and attempts at acquisitions by Schumacher and friends in filings with the STB, and also numerous abandonments. While it is difficult to match acquisitions with abandonments, presumably these earlier “V&S” lines no longer exist. Unless some action is taken by communities and industries along the line, the Grenada and Natchez Railways will probably join its former corporate brothers as short lived “Fallen Flags”.

A Walk Down Whitehaven Lane

Some history on the line recently acquired by Iowa Pacific Holdings

A Walk Down Whitehaven Lane

by Tom Parker

(Reprinted from the July 2008 Memphis Buff)

Looking North from Whitehaven Lane. Vacant area 

West of track was depot location.

There are probably a number  of old railroad stations in the Memphis area that have been lost to history. One station that almost  fits that description is “White's Station” in what is now Whitehaven.

In February, 1846, a group of cotton planters in Northern Mississippi were granted a charter by the state of Mississippi to build a railroad for the transportation of cotton to the Mississippi River. The charter was renewed in 1852, but  ther was no progress made until  July 4, 1953 when a  meeting of planters occurred at the plantation of Colonel Francis M. White in Como, MS.

Colonel White took charge and by the spring of 1855 severeal miles of track had ben laid southward from Memphis and on May 5, 1855, the first engine, the “DeSoto”, arrived in Memphis. One year later, on May 1, 1856,  a celebration was held in Hernando, Mississippi, marking the completion of the rails to that city. One year later the tracks reached  Sardis, Mississippi, the halfway point between Memphis and Grenada, MS. It was not until 1861 however that the track was completed to a connection with the Mississippi Central Railroad at Grenada, Mississippi.

A station was established  just north of the Mississippi/Tennessee state line at what is now the intersection of Whithaven Lane and  Amey Road. The station was originally named “White's Station” in honor of Col. White. The community surronding the station became known as “White Haven” and eventually  “Whitehaven”.  Although the depot has been gone for for many decades, the house track survived through the 1970's.     

This 1891 plat shows location of Depot (highlighted in red)

As late as 1979 the house track still appeared on IC's Track Profiles

Who was this "Harahan" Fellow Anyway?

(Reprinted from April 2012 Memphis Buff, Memphis NRHS  Chapter Newsletter)

East Portal of Harahan Bridge

Who Was This “Harahan” Fellow Anyway?

By Tom Parker

The Harahan Bridge has been in the news a lot lately and additionally there has been a lot of discussion among the MRTM bunch as the captions on the bridge mural are finalized.

Generally, little thought is given to the origin of the name. After all, it's been the Harahan Bridge for almost 100 years. Being from an Illinois Central family, I had known since childhood that it was named after a former president of the IC, but since the IC never crossed the bridge, I couldn't understand why.

James Theodore Harahan was born in Lowell, MA, on January 21, 1841. He began his railroad career with the United States military railroad system during the Civil War. In 1866 he began working for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and in 1888 was named Superintendent of the L&N's Memphis Division. He advanced to the position of General Manager of the L&N and later held the same position with the C&O Railroad.

He joined the Illinois Central in 1890 as second vice president and general manager of the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad, later to become the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley. He oversaw the construction of a large yard just outside of New Orleans, LA, in a community named Harahan by the railroad in his honor.

In 1899, Harahan married Mary N. Mallory, the daughter of Captian William Barton Mallory, a long time friend and prominent Memphian. After the wedding at the Mallory residence in Memphis, the newlyweds left on a special train to Mexico, where they planned to stay for six to eight weeks, before returning to Chicago where they were to reside.

During most of his career with the Illinois Central, Harahan worked under President Stuyvesant Fish. In 1906, Harahan aligned himself with Edward H. Harriman and in a heated election replaced Fish as the president of the railroad and served in that office until his mandatory retirement at the age of 70 on January 11, 1911.

If not for a fateful train wreck early January 22, 1912, Harahan would probably have been just a footnote in Memphis history. Harahan and officials of the Rock Island Railroad were traveling in Rock Island business car 1902 which was attached to the rear of Illinois Central train number 25, the “New Orleans Express”.

Harahan had recently been named president of the Memphis Bridge and Terminal Company, which had been incorporated to build a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River at Memphis. The Rock Island had bought a share in the company just a few week earlier on January 3^rd and the group was enroute to Memphis to discuss the project.

Number 25 was stopped at Kinmundy. Illinois for water when it was struck in the rear by train #3, the “Panama Limited” The locomotive hit the wooden Rock Island business car and ended splintering two thirds of the length of the car before coming to a stop.

Killed were Harahan, Frank O. Melcher, second vice president of the Rock Island, Judge Edward B. Pierce, general solicitor of the Rock Island and Major Eldridge E. Wright, vice president of the Memphis Bridge and Terminal Company.

Coincidentally, Train # 25 was being pulled by locomotive 1212 which was previously numbered 382, the engine in which Casey Jones met his fate over ten years earlier.

As a result James T. Harahan's death in the wreck, the bridge was posthumously named in his honor.

Bridge Mural on North Wall of Museum

Illinois Central's "Hot Cut"

Illinois Central's “Hot Cut”

- By Tom Parker

North Yard transfer job with IC GP-7 8963 and SW-7 403 passes through Central Station in July 1968 . Note southbound “City of New Orleans on adjacent track.

Photo by Phil Gosney and used with permission

I happened across the above photograph on Mike Condren's website and and it immediately took me back to the early days of my railroad career over forty years ago.

I first became acquainted with IC 8963 working a data processing (keypunch) job at Johnston Yard. Aside from telegraph operators at Central Station and Johnston Yard, the “IBM Room” in the “Big Office” was the only interface between the Memphis Terminal and the IC's telegraphy based information system. Interchange cuts and and the “Woodstock Switcher” had to be punched into IBM cards each night and transmitted via telegraph to the IC's computer in Chicago. (Records of transfers between the yards and industrial moves were 100% pencil and paper and were not transmitted to Chicago.) IC 8963 was the engine assigned to the “Woodstock Switcher” and after a few days typing “IC 8963” four times a night the number began to stick in your head, even after forty years.

8963 was usually tied up on the North Yard
Engine Track behind the yard office

Phil Gosney's picture is what was the afternoon transfer to North Yard. There were three of these transfer jobs, one for each shift and operated seven days a week, The jobs went to work at South Yard and would take track 9, where the North Yard cars were classified to North Yard. 8963 was probably on its way back to North Yard after being serviced at the Johnston Roundhouse. Its usual home was the engine track behind the North Yard office.

After the transfer job yarded its cut, it would double together tracks containing blocks of cars destined to South Yard and “A” and “C” Yards at Johnston Yard.

Map showing yard locations

This Southbound transfer was known as the “Hot Cut”. A number of Memphis' largest industries such as Humko, Firestone, International Harvester and Kimberly Clark were located in the North Yard territory. Additionally, the aforementioned “Woodstock Switcher” operated out of North Yard and cars from Dupont, W.R. Grace and other Woodstock industries were added to the mix.

Companion to the “Hot Cut” was the “Hot Sheet”. Issued by the Superintendent's Office each day and updated frequently, the “Hot Sheet” was telegraphed to all the yard offices on the terminal, listing cars requiring expedited handling, many of the on the “Hot Cuts”.

At South Yard, "City" loading was set out and the "Hot Cut" proceeded south to Johnston Yard taking the “North” and “South” cars to Johnston's “A” and “C” Yards respectively. At all three yards, the cars would be switched immediately upon arrival and the loading would move on the very next train, interchange or industrial cut, many times within just a few hours after the leaving North Yard.

My dad was an engineer for the Illinois Central. In the years that he worked for the IC, he probably sat at the throttle of a majority of the IC's engines, but 8963 is the only engine that I can definitively say he operated. More than once, he got stuck with working the night switcher at Woodstock.

IC GP-7 8963 was built in 1953. It spent most of the 1960's assigned to the “Woodstock Switcher” operating out of Memphis North Yard. It was rebuilt in 1978 by VMV at Paducah, KY into a GP-8 and renumbered IC 7973. It was sold to Steel Processing on May 26, 1993, and presumably scrapped. 

 Reprinted from the June, 2009 Memphis Buff

Note: The above photo of IC 8963 is available as a post card in the Museum's gift shop.