Senior editor Gay Nagle Myers sampled Pullman Rail Journeys’ overnight rail service from Chicago to New Orleans, a 20-hour, 934-mile odyssey that loosely followed the path of the Mississippi River south, passing cities, farmlands, muddy fields, swamps, the graveyards of rusted cars and small towns where people in cars waved as the train passed by. She decided that rail travel is underrated and she wants more of it. Gay’s second and final dispatch follows. Click to read her first dispatch.
Many of the Pullman staff — porters, waiters, conductors, stewards, chefs and sous chefs — come from food-and-beverage backgrounds in the hospitality industry.
They go through training, and it’s done by the Pullman book. One very important rule: they are trained to flatten themselves against the wall of the narrow train corridors or to step into an open doorway to let passengers pass by.
The corridors are definitely narrow, the train is moving and it is a delicate balancing act.
I accidentally bumped and jostled a couple of the crew, going back and forth from my “bedroom” to the dining car.
“We’re used to it,” said Larry, one of the waiters.
What also requires good balance is taking a shower. Although all of the room categories had a private bathroom, not all had en suite showers. Mine was one of them.
The shower facility was a few doors from my room, and my porter would have arranged a shower time for me if I had requested it.
I checked it out and decided that holding a bar of soap in a shower on a moving train (average speed was 78 mph) was an accident waiting to happen.
Apparently, that’s a decision most passengers make.
“The showers don’t get a lot of use,” Jack, the steward in charge of the dining car, told me.
“It’s just an overnight trip. How dirty can anyone get in that amount of time?” he asked.
In addition to the small cadre of media on the train, my fellow passengers were several couples who hailed from Texas, Wisconsin and Illinois.
“We just love trains. We’ve taken them in Europe, across Canada and we wanted to try this one,” the Texans told me.
The Chicago couple was headed to JazzFest in New Orleans. They planned on spending two days in the Big Easy, returning to Chicago on the same train.
“It’s a great way to travel. No long lines, no security checks, no inflight instructions on oxygen masks. Just get on, relax, watch the country pass by, have good meals and a good night’s sleep and you’re there,” they told me.
Works for me.
“Most of our passengers are couples in the 55-plus group. We’ve had some repeat customers who have brought friends along with them,” said Sarah Munley, director of marketing.
Agent business is picking up. Commission is 10%, and one-way fares range from $500 per person, single, to $1,140, double, in the master suite (it has a shower in the compartment).
A great way to do this trip is to bookend it with a stay in Chicago at the beginning and a stay in New Orleans at the end. Pullman Rail Journeys has a couple of packages that do just that.
The company plans to launch overnight sleeper service next year from Chicago to New York via a stop in Washington. I plan to be on it.