That one song is waaaay too happy to be about a train wreck

Reminder too that if you book far in advance, an Amtrak coach seat is often significantly cheaper than a direct flight, or even a flight with a layover sometimes. If you’re looking for a cheap way to get between the areas the Crescent serves, it very likely might be the cheapest option

At the behest of a co-worker who was also a railfan, I rode the Southern Crescent from New Orleans to Meridian and back one Saturday in 1978 when I lived in NO, just before Amtrak took it over. It was a throwback to the glory days of rail passenger travel. Most memorable was "dinner in the diner", with linen tablecloths and china place settings, service by waiters and food cooked on board over a wood stove. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity.

My guess about your ride on Amfleet II coaches at 110 mph is that the air suspension has seen better days. They ride just fine at speed when they are properly maintained. Take it from a former Amtrak OBS employee who rode them in their first decade. As for the years SR kept the Crescent separate, those were the years when W. Graham Claytor, Jr. was Southern's President and felt that Amtrak was not up to their standards. Mr. Claytor (and it was always MISTER Claytor), left SR in 1977 to become Jimmy Carter's Assistant Secretary of the Navy (he was a WWII Navy veteran and commander of the ship that rescued survivors of the torpedoing of the USS Indianapolis in 1945). So after he left SR, they decided to end their holdout and join Amtrak. Mr. Claytor then went on to become President of Amtrak for most of the 1980s and early 1990s. He is generally credited with saving Amtrak from Ronald Reagan's attempted cut of Amtrak.

Lake Pontchartrain was named after Louis Phélypeaux, the Comte de Pontchartrain. He was the French Minister of the Marine, Chancellor, and Controller-General of Finances during the reign of France's "Sun King", Louis XIV, who Louisiana was named after. The name Pontchartrain itself comes from the place in France where Phélypeaux's château is situated. It is thought that this name originates from it being where a bridge (pont) crossed the river Mauldre on the ancient route from Lutèce to Chartres (chartrain). Not only is the Norfolk Southern rail bridge over Lake Pontchartrain that parallels the Maestri Bridge is impressive, but the causeway for cars in the middle of the estuary is just as impressive! The longer of the two bridges of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is 23.83 miles (38.35 km) long! The southbound opened in 1956, while the northbound opened in 1959, and the bridges are supported by 9,500 concrete pilings! The opening of the causeway boosted the fortunes of small North Shore communities by reducing drive time into New Orleans by up to 50 minutes, bringing the North Shore into the New Orleans metropolitan area. And the Mississippi flag that was adopted in 2021 of the best state flags imo! The topmost gold star is composed of a pattern of five diamonds, an Indigenous symbol of the Choctaw. The other 20 stars are white, as Mississippi was the 20th state to join the Union. Mississippi is known as both the Hospitality State and the Magnolia State, and the magnolia blossom represents both, while also representing Mississippi’s sense of hope and rebirth, as the Magnolia often blooms more than once and has a long blooming season. Gold represents Mississippi's cultural history (specifically the visual arts, literature, music, and performing arts to originate in the state), blue echoes the US flag and represents vigilance, justice, and perseverance, and red represents hardiness and valor. The flag was designed by Rocky Vaughan is credited with designing the flag's overall layout, with design support provided by Sue Anna Joe, Kara Giles and Dominique Pugh (who created the magnolia illustration featured in the center). Sue Anna Joe is a member of the Chinese Mississippi Delta community. Originally from Guangdong, the first wave of Chinese immigrants came to the Delta soon after the Civil War, and the pace picked up by the early 1900s. The Chinese originally came to work picking cotton, but they quickly soured on farming. By the 1870s, they started opening grocery stores, mostly in the African-American communities where they lived. The population of the Mississippi Delta Chinese exploded after war. Many young Chinese men from the Mississippi Delta served as soldiers during the Second World War, and many women from China married these soldiers and settled in the Delta as war brides after the war.

Cannot recommend stopping in Meridian enough!! The whole downtown has been beautifully revitalized, and they’ve truly embraced their place as an Amtrak community. They’ve redone their theater and train station to further entice visitors to come to Meridian, and I must say, it’s worked great! Absolutely loved visiting there a couple months ago, and cannot recommend enough grabbing a meal at Wiedmann’s Restaurant, the oldest restaurant in the entire state of Mississippi, for some classic Southern cooking!

The new Mississippi flag is almost great. If they got rid of the text and just made it a full ring of stars, it'd be in the top tier of state flags up there with Arizona and New Mexico. Of course, considering what it was before, even a seal on a bedsheet would have been a dramatic improvement.

Great video! I've been on the Crescent twice in recent time, namely between Charlotte and New York, and I've had a great time in terms of scenery and railfanning action. I never knew about the REM song, and its music video is an especially nice treat for railfans.

I really like how you blended elements of a trip report and history video. Learning the historical significance of the service makes me appreciate it a lot more.

I rode the northbound train in its last months of operation by the Southern Railway - very nice service until the end. North of Washington, it was added to a regular Amtrak run. The Southern equipment was stored in Sunnyside Yard and could be seen from New York's elevated #7 train.

Great video, The Crescent looks like a nice adventure. That's an excellent point about the value it offers for these smaller in-between towns and smaller cities offering nearly unlimited permutations of city/town pairs. This is a point I feel is often lost amongst people critical of Amtrak's long-distance routes. I've also found the Amfleet IIs to be rougher riding than Amfleet Is at over 100 mph when I've taken short trips on the Adirondack over the 110 mph portion of the Empire Corridor over an Amtrak maintained and distpatched portion of the line between Hudson, N.Y. and Albany-Renssalaer. But the seats are really an upgrade from the Amfleet I's. I thought the same about it being a business class ugrade.

Great video. Caleb most definitely DID do his research on this one. Spent a good part of the 80s-90s as an REM nut (still a fan, just not as obsessive as then), and Driver 8 was always my favorite song, and Fables is still my favorite album of theirs.

I have taken the Crescent once from Atlanta to Charlotte. It was an overnight train and it was the cheapest way to go between the two cities.

My Dad worked for Southern in DC and my Mom was from Atlanta so rode the Crescent quite a bit from Alexandria, VA, to Atlanta.

To be able to still see GG1’s and Streamliners in service today would be an Awesome and welcome site, compared to Amtrak

I just took the Crescent from Birmingham to New Orleans last week . I've taken this trip countless times over the last ten years, and I love it. I prefer traveling by train over flying. The Amtrax people are very friendly and they really appreciate their customers 😊😊 .

I have ridden the Amtrak version of the Crescent twice. Once to Atlanta and the Gulf Breeze version to Mobile. It was a good ride both times I rode it. However I have heard others comment that the quality of service has gone down compared to years ago. By the way you asked about the fish symbol on the side of your Amfleet car. I was told years ago when I rode the silver service to Miami that that symbol ment the car was supposed to mean the car should run on either of the silver service trains and routine maintenance was to be done at the Hialeah yard at the Miami end of the line.

Thanks for the review of the Crescent and the history lesson. I rode it in 2019 in a roomette but only Charlotte > NYC. I rode the Carolinean on the return since the time suited me better. Looking forward to the return of full service dining.

I had the pleasure of riding the last northbound Southern Crescent out of Atlanta in 1979. The train was a class act until the end. There are several reasons the Southern Railway threw un the towel and handed the train over to Amtrak. 1) The December 1978 Southern Crescent wreck in Virginia killed four people and tore up a lot of equipment. Liability issues played a large part in the decision to end Southern Railway operation of the train. 2) At that time Amtrak had already committed to converting it's fleet to Head End Power (HEP). The cars Amtrak chose to convert were all Budd built stainless steel cars. Converting Pullman Standard carbon steel cars to high voltage HEP would have caused major problems with electrolysis. Southern Railways fleet was largely made up of carbon steel cars. The cost of converting it's few Budd cars as well as buying new cars to replace the PS cars was just too much. New locomotives to replace the aging E8's would also need to be ordered. The last steam heated Amtrak train, The Silver Star, ran in March 1982. That would have meant the end of any through car service to New York. 3) The retirement of W Graham Claytor as Southern Railway CEO in 1977 probably had a lot to do with it as he insisted on keeping the train as a showcase of the Southern Railway. He later went on to serve as Amtrak's CEO. 4) I doubt the train would have survived the upcoming Norfolk Southern merger.

I’m glad to have ridden the Southern Crescent, and Amtrak’s Crescent several times. There is magic in that route. It’s definitely worth riding.

I like how one overhead electric powered locomotive can do the same amount of work as two diesel engines and reach significantly higher speeds doing it. Nearly every other country with a significant railroad network is expanding electrification on its network. India is leading the way with 95% electrification of its 68,000 kilometers of mainline railroads. In the US, a pathetic 1% of the railroads under electrification. American railroad CEOs are trying to push this absolute nonsense of hydrogen and battery electric locomotives. I think this is nothing but an attempt to delay the implementation of overhead electrification as long as possible so they can continue to use diesel. A lot of rail fans hate electrification, too. I don't know why exactly. But hey, it's not like there's no way for another 1973 oil crisis to happen again, right? Give me a break.

Great video, though coming in I would have sworn this was gonna be about The City of New Orleans train from Chicago that Steve Goodman wrote about haha, now that train is on my bucket list!

I took the Southern Crescent when it was still Southern Railway south of Washington. DC in 1976 and 1977 3 times between New Jersey and Alabama and back and I loved it! It was named the " Southern Crescent" then, a combination of the SR trains "Southerner" and "Crescent" when they were separate trains until about 1970 before Amtrak. The "Southerner" which is today's "Crescent" was actually combined with the Pennsylvania railroad and New Haven railroad's Senator as far as Washington DC, the Senator originating in Boston. Also, Southern Railway's "Asheville Special" also was combined into the 3 pm departure from Penn Station, NY. until the end of the 1960's. The "Southerner" included coaches and a sleeper for the "Asheville Special" till Greensboro, NC. But, even in 1976 this was a long train, running 18 cars or better, and also included an Amtrak thru sleeping car for believe it or not, Los Angeles, interchanging in N.O. with the Sunset Limited. On one trip, between NY and Washington, I remember Amtrak put on a rounded end observation car as the tail car. I do credit Amtrak for operating an excellent schedule within the NE Corridor. Usually, I travelled coach, but one time I booked a roomette in the SR's "Warrior River". What a fun trip for a rail fan! At Washington we changed our 2 GG-1s for 4 Southern Railway green and gold E8 A units! I remember speeding over the beautiful Virginia countryside having dinner in the diner! In Atlanta, the consist added an ex-Wabash dome car as the tail car, where you could see 360 degrees and I was able to view the long consist ahead of us as well as the locomotives and the right-of-way in the distance, a bygone perk which is unlike the current observation cars, which you can only look out one side of the car or the other. Besides adding the dome car in Atlanta, we also dropped a few of cars, but it was still 13 or 14 cars to New Orleans. It always ran about on-time, the conductors, trainmen and dining car waiters were always friendly and cordial, the food always freshly prepared or so it seemed. Between Atlanta and Birmingham, it was not high-speed, but sitting in that dome car, you really didn't notice as it was so much fun! However, even in 1976, it was a faster schedule than Amtrak has today, leaving NY 45 minutes later and arriving in New Orleans over an hour earlier; that's the schedule anyway. Until at least 1993 I remember the Crescent as a long train, as I would see it from the northbound Silver Star in the corridor. Once in a while, I still watch trains nearby, and this one is no more than 8 cars long, a mere vestige of its once proud and interesting Southern Railway days. Thank-you for your video.

Just did this trip to New Orleans from Cincinnati to Charlottesville changing trains. Then on to NO. Only Negative thing was 5 hour wait on frieght trains 2 miles from station. Downtown NO is no where to be at 3 am!

We took this train 6 months ago, It was horrible. It arrived in N.O. 10 hours late! The bedroom we spent a couple thousand dollars on was old and dirty and rattled like crazy all day and night. NEVER AGAIN!

Southbound seems like a good way to go on this route! I feel like the NE Corridor between DC and Philadelphia is mostly pretty boring, in terms of scenery. It just seems underwhelming compared to the scenery of the South!

I have taken the train from New Orleans to Atlanta. New Orleans is one of the worst places for public transportation I've ever seen. What's sad is there's so many historical and iconic places that don't even have anything to do with the renown French Quarter. The facilities are always filthy, you have extremely rude customer service personnel, because of the economic instability there, you will always see many homeless people use it as their everything, in example as heating or cooling sources in winter or summer. Hopefully, you just arrive at time of departure to spare yourself that experience. Once the train is moving, it's much better. Long train ride. Like 12 hours. Longest I had ever been on. Bring entertainment & snacks.

3:05 Woah, was that first coupling attempt *unsuccessful* ?! I've never seen that!

The route for this train passes only a couple of miles from my house a bit outside Greensboro. Finally saw one going through the crossing a couple of weeks ago and was surprised how fast it was going, especially because the Norfolk Southern freight trains that pass through here are rarely doing much more than 20.

You might be able to fly, but not everyone can. Asking the question side lines those Americans who cannot fly and short changes the value of Crescent. Yes, the Crescent it absolutely worth it. Additionally when you consider that most of the southern portion of the Crescent's route connects many city pairs that are simply not within 2 hour drives of any of those $39 dollar flight destinations, Meridian Mississippi comes to mind, Thinking of the Crescent as a "land cruise" ignores the fact the Crescent, like all Amtrak routes, serves as actual transit for many Americans. There is s reason Amtrak always has more Coach than Room seating.

The crescent played a key role transporting people during the civil rights era, when black people in the south working as farm laborers relocated to the northeastern cities for better paying jobs & economic prosperity. It’s unfortunate though that a lot of these companies shut down manufacturing and production moved to China, forever leaving a stain on these communities.

I totally recommend the Quisby hostel if you are in New Orleans.

The riding experience hit rock bottom when Amtrak removed the dining car service on all overnight trains east of the Mississippi. It's a joke now.

The swordfish indicates the coach was overhauled at Amtrak Hialeah FL shops

Brilliant video sir.

I hope CP treats Amtrak well. They don't have the best reputation up here in Canada. CN seems to work pretty decently with Metrolinx (which has big pockets for commuter rail) but CP only allowed a peak direction Milton Line after the City of Mississauga threatened to sue them following a massive derailment in 1979 of hazardous freight cars necessitated the largest peacetime evacuation in North America until Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Hazel McCallion threatened to sue CP to recoup emergency response costs but said they would drop the lawsuit if CP allowed a GO Train. Backed into a corner like that, they consented.

Mississippi flag looks great. Even if you ignore the context of the old flag, which you shouldn’t but even if you do, that flag looked hideous. The new one looks so much nicer. And yes the old one absolutely was about hate, and if you want to claim it was about heritage I say, yes absolutely, heritage like slavery and Jim Crow

Yay you have a connection to Manassas! when did you ride this I may have seen your train!

Hello from Kansas 🇺🇲

7.8/10 instructions unclear, the train went through kankakee

Did you say Shreveport? Haven't been to New Orleans.. but I have been to "Shreepoor" as the locals call it... though by plane, from Australia, when the company I worked for bought Poulan - Weedeater in 1987.

I am confused…Wasn’t the ‘City Of New Orleans’ initiated by Illinois Central, taken over by Amtrak in the 70s? Still originating from Chicago, not New York.

I did it round trip once between NYC and Atlanta in Nov 2001 with my wife and 3 month old son. It was right after 9/11 when flying wasn’t ’an option’. The baby behaved the whole trip btw. It was an experience however I’m flying R/T to ATL next month at $78. you can’t beat that. Train travel can be fun but at minimum of 18 to 20 hours each way compared to 3 hours. Flying is the way to go based on recovery time alone plus try going to work the next day. Video brought back memories though. Thank you.

it's been 18 episodes since u lastly made WHAT IF video,do u promise that next video would be about that ?

That’s what long distance trains do that planes can not and that’s linking metros together and smaller towns to racier and larger towns.

All of the Michigan services trains cross between eastern and central time during the day as they cross between IN and MI. This is quite frequent, unless your comment was specifically referring to the Amtrak LD network?

aw sweet, new train just dropped

No,, NO,,, & NNOOO. This train is so ancient, and the line is still so slow its ridiculous. I can confirm this train will take@12hours from New Orleans to Atlanta, (including several stops - 4or 5). The Public restroom is in a converted boxcar with seats and an area gated in the rear to one side WITH NO VENTILATION. & The sliding door takes some muscle to öpen, and it slams shut. The head of the Department of Transportation should book a ticket and take a ride on this rail line to see how antiquated this train is, and bring it from the 20th century into the 21st century with a global BULLET TRAIN. It would still be cheaper than flying😢😢😢😢

Captain Obvious walking a worn-out trail.

Cool👍

Commonwealth of Virginia*

Classy🐳 😃

What's the "HOSTEL'S" STREET AND HOSTEL NAME, PLEASE TELL , THANKYOU IN ADVANCE !!!

New MS flag is excellent, way better than the cringe flag they had before.

In NEW ORLEANS

are we gonna get new content not reedited

✌🏾

No

i