Travel Aboard Amtrak's Crescent, surprising comfort and welcome seclusion on a slow train to Mississ [View all]
Sigh. More chugging trains. How long has it been since locomotives chugged?
Also, passenger service between New York and New Orleans over the Southern Railway started a lot longer than any fifty years ago.
Travel
Aboard Amtraks Crescent, surprising comfort and welcome seclusion on a slow train to Mississippi
By
Scott Butterworth
Jan. 1, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. EST
With bell ringing and diesel engine chugging to a halt for its daily stop in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the Amtrak Crescent created quite an impression on its audience: a boy in a lime green T-shirt who was waving mightily to herald the arrival, and his dad, who held a video camera to his eye to capture the moment.
Fifty years after this passenger-train service debuted to connect New York and New Orleans, the arrival of the Crescent can still stoke a sense of excitement at its 31 stops, including Tuscaloosa.
But the show may be winding down.
This fall, Amtrak halved the Crescents daily service and that of its other long-distance routes to three trips a week, citing the long-term impact of covid-19 on ridership. While the railroad suggests it could resume daily service as soon as next summer, Amtrak leaders have been outspoken for more than a year about their desire to remove long-distance trains such as the Crescent from the schedule.
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I would gladly ride another long-distance route on Amtrak. If, that is, one remains available to ride.
Butterworth is a freelance writer based in Rockville, Md.