A Pullman Adventure

[hessjm]

In order to fit into our schedule we needed to do a yo-yo type run to New Orleans.

I left Grand Rapids on Friday to connect with the CONO to NOL. JoeG boarded in Carbondale somewhere around 1:30am. The food service on the train to NOL was dismal at best. A McDonalds hamburger beats the Amtrak burger on this train. There ain't no way the eggs served in this train ever saw a chickens behind either.

Once in New Orleans, things improve dramatically. We checked into our hotel and headed of to a nearby dive called Chucks Sports Bar; it lived up to its name! We made a stop at the Carousel bar for a Sazerac - a cocktail dreamed up there. Next we were off to Arnaud's French 75 for some libations and small plates.

We left there to visit a spot I saw last December, "Touluse Dive Bar" is seemed like our kind of place! We spent a couple of hours chatting with the locals and the place never had moe than a dozen folks in it. Keep in mind that we were only 10 or 15 feet off of

Bourbon Street!

In the morning we headed out to the Ruby Slipper for breakfast, we both had variations of eggs Benedict; mine was with hash and JoeG had pork debris. I highly recommend this place.

Next we finished packing up and took the streetcar up to the Amtrak station to hitch our ride on Pullman. The Pullman folks gave us credentials and took our bags to the train. We were able to board the train well before the regular Amtrak passengers. Once onboard we headed to the dome care to have a couple of adult beverages and have lunch.



Desert....



Now to relax; enjoy the view and have some more of the adult beverages in the dome car!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Another fantastic 2 Joes adventure in a great City! And IINM, this was ya'lls "comp" trip from the previous fabulous trip on IP to NOL?

We're envious!

 

[Railroad Bill]

We love New Orleans and perhaps one of these trips we will schedule the Pullman adventure. Have a great time guys..

 

[hessjm]

All right, we have completed dinner. I had the beef tenderloin and JoeG had the salmon. I remembered from lat years trip that the potatoes were extremely tasty and had told that to one of the "porters" so when our meals were delivered we had two helpings of the potatoes!



Oh and we had very nice salads.



All in all I think we were pretty happy with the whole evening!



We are in Memphis having an after dinner aperitif before calling it a night.

 

[hessjm]

I forgot to post this fine gem:

 

[Railroad Bill]

Great photos guys. Food looks DDDDelicious and the flowers were nice too.

 

[Shortline]

I was able to take Pullman North a while back, in a bedroom. Was a great trip, really enjoyed it, especially the round Observation car on the end. Booked tonIndianapolis on their Hoosier State in October, looking forward to that. Would like to do another Pullman, though hoping they expand to other routes, the CONO isn't my favorite routing.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Pullman has been advertising a number of one-time only trips every Sunday in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday travel section. There will be round-trip to Florida over the New Year's holiday. The cars will be attached to the Capitol Limited and Silver Meteor, with a number of Florida destinations including Orlando, West Palm Beach and Miami. Over the summer they have western national parks trips. The Chicago-New York City trips are apparently on the back burner.

Check out their website.

 

[Orie]

Great report! Sounds like you had a great trip.

I went to school in New Orleans, and I go back and visit quite often. I've taken the Crescent and City of New Orleans on one trip, I enjoyed it. I really hope to take a Pullman car one day from Chicago to NOLA, or vice versa. The only problem is I don't want to do Pullman by myself, and I don't really have friends I could convince to come on a LD train trip with me. Especially one that costs as much as a Pullman trip. One day...