Amtrak New Orleans offers solid train travel options
Amtrak New Orleans
Winter Getaways! The more things change, the more they remain the same. College students wanting to get away during their break is one of those. This 1996 ad in the Loyola Maroon tempts students to get warm, or perhaps get cold and go skiing.
Students at colleges and universities in New Orleans have a lot of options when it comes to spring break. It’s easy to hop in a car and go to Florida, or maybe do some hiking and camping in the Smokey Mountains. However, going beyond that gets tough. While there are a lot of other destinations. auto travel bites into actual time at the destination.
Take the Train!
Amtrak offers travel rates lower than flying. Taking the train for spring break is also a challenge. Flying gets you where you want to go within hours. It takes a day and a half, for example, to get to Chicago from New Orleans. Not that students choose that route in February/March. Worse yet, travel on the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles takes two and a half days!
The strategy: make the train trip part of the vacation. When you’ve never been west of the Mississippi, travel through Louisiana, Texas, and points west is interesting. Even the single-day run to Atlanta provides wonderful Southern scenery. While 1996 airports weren’t the security circus of present-day air travel, getting to the airport was still a struggle.
Life on the train
Pack a bag in your Loyola/Tulane/Dillard/Xavier dorm. Get on the train. Bring some books. No internet in 1996? Go with a friend you can talk to. So, you’re off to Atlanta at 7am, arriving in the evening. Lots to do in the largest city in the South.
Heading west? Lunch on the way to Houston. Get off there, enjoy the most cosmopolitan city in Texas. Keep going? Dinner as Texas rolls by. So, spend a little more money, get a sleeper. Relax in privacy!
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