Railfans

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Inside the train station at Meridian, Mississippi.

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Inside the AMTRAK train station in New Orleans.  The Greyhound Bus station is in the same building.

This is the AMTRAK ticket counter, with daily schedules on the board above for the three trains that come through New Orleans:
The Crescent;
The City of New Orleans;
The Sunset Ltd.
This board is not readable in this picture, but see the following picture also for a closeup of two of the train schedules.

And yes, that clock is right:  5:46 in the morning.  The train left at 7:05, we boarded at 6:35, and I didn't know how long it would take to find a taxi at that hour, so I checked out of the hotel plenty early.

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Mural in the lobby of the AMTRAK New Orleans station.

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Inside the Magnolia Room, the waiting area for sleeping car passengers in New Orleans.  It was much simpler than the Club Acela in Philadelphia, but did have a few chairs that were more comfortable than the benches in the main lobby.

I took this picture because of the flowers.   

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A few more miscellaneous train stations.

This must be Washington, D.C., despite the Toyota ad for jobs in Mississippi.

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We had a half-hour stop in Atlanta, so I got out and took some pictures of the flowers and trees, too.

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That waiting area in Philadelphia is nice! I'm sure they have something similar in DC, but not for coach passengers! 

The Meridian station is beautiful, I think it's been refurbished since I was last through in 1997.

And Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans was probably the last major passenger station built in this country, in 1954. Before then there were 5 or 6 different stations, and there was a maze of train tracks all around the city. It was unusual to travel anywhere in the city without having to stop and wait for a train to pass, passenger or freight. They eventually consolidated the freight lines too. In A Streetcar Named Desire, I think Williams made reference to the fact that Stella and Stanley's apartment was very close to the train tracks that went down the middle of Elysian Fields Avenue, which I remember well. They were removed around the same time that Union Station was built.

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Picayune, Mississippi train station.

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A fuller shot of the Picayune, Mississippi train station.

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I can remember a time when this board was full of times for long-distance and connecting trains. The station would be barely used at all if it weren't for the fact that it has also been made the main bus station, too.

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Althugh this picture doesn't show a sign or a building, this is the stop in Slidell, Louisiana...the last stop on the way down, before New Orleans.