City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans runs every night in each direction between Chicago and New Orleans — 934 miles down the middle of the country through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, in about 19½ hours. On the way it calls at Champaign, Carbondale, Memphis, Greenwood, Jackson and Hammond, and it is the only Amtrak train in Tennessee.

It is also the train with its own song. The Illinois Central put on the City of New Orleans in 1947 as a day train; Amtrak kept it in 1971 but within months moved it overnight and renamed it the Panama Limited. In the meantime the folk singer Steve Goodman had ridden the Illinois Central south to visit his wife's family and written a song about the train, which Arlo Guthrie took into the charts in 1972. In February 1981 Amtrak gave the train its old name back, to make the most of the song.

Amtrak sells the route as a journey through American music: Chicago's blues, Beale Street in Memphis, the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans jazz. The Delta comes in the morning southbound.

Train 59 leaves Chicago Union Station at 20:05 and runs south through Homewood and Kankakee onto the Illinois prairie in the dark. Champaign comes just before 23:00, then Mattoon, Effingham and Centralia around midnight, and Carbondale, the last stop in Illinois, at 01:54. Fulton, Kentucky, and Newbern-Dyersburg, Tennessee, pass before dawn.

The Delta by day

The train reaches Memphis Central Station at 06:55, as the day begins. South of the city it runs into the cotton country of the Mississippi Delta, calling at Marks, Greenwood on the Yazoo River and Yazoo City through the morning. Jackson, the state capital, comes at 11:49; then Hazlehurst, Brookhaven and McComb in the early afternoon.

Into Louisiana

After Hammond at 14:12 the line crosses the swamp at Manchac, between Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain, and runs in to New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal at 15:47, 19 hours 42 minutes after Chicago.

Northbound the day turns round. Train 58 leaves New Orleans at 13:45, so Louisiana and southern Mississippi come by day and the Delta in the evening; Memphis is at 22:45, Illinois is crossed overnight and at breakfast, and the train reaches Chicago at 09:15.

The train itself

The route runs on the old Illinois Central main line, now owned by Canadian National. The train is made up of Amtrak's double-deck Superliner cars — coaches and sleepers, with Roomettes, Bedrooms, a Bedroom Suite and Family and Accessible Bedrooms — and has a café. Meals are Amtrak's Flexible Dining, included for passengers in private rooms. Power is GE P42DC or Siemens ALC-42 Charger diesels.

The City of New Orleans runs every day in each direction, all year. Southbound, train 59 leaves Chicago at 20:05 and reaches New Orleans at 15:47 the next day, 19 hours 42 minutes on. Northbound, train 58 leaves New Orleans at 13:45 and reaches Chicago at 09:15 the next day, 19 hours 30 minutes on.

All times below are local (Central time throughout), and the day is counted from departure.

Good to know:

• St. Louis and Baton Rouge are a bus. An Amtrak Thruway bus links Carbondale with St. Louis, and Thruway buses run between New Orleans and Baton Rouge; Amtrak books them with the train.
• The times move. Amtrak's timetable is generated for a single date rather than a season; the times above are from the one for 13 November 2026. Check your own date, and leave slack for onward connections — the train runs on a freight railway.

Times as of November 2026, from Amtrak's published timetable for 13 November 2026. Confirm before travelling on amtrak.com (opens in a new tab).

Fares on the City of New Orleans move with demand rather than sitting on a published table. A search of Amtrak's booking engine in November 2026 for one adult, Chicago to New Orleans on Wednesday 6 January 2027, gave Coach from $123 and private rooms from $424, the room price covering up to two adults. Business class is not offered on this train. Book early, and book direct.

Coach is a reclining seat with the café on board. A room adds a bed, an attendant and meals; the Bedroom adds its own washroom and shower. Fares checked November 2026 at amtrak.com (opens in a new tab); US dollars, one way.

Amtrak's own USA Rail Pass covers the City of New Orleans. It costs $499 for 10 segments over 30 days, in Coach only — upgrades to a Roomette or Bedroom are not available on it. A segment is one boarding and one alighting, so riding Chicago to New Orleans straight through uses one of the ten. The pass is valid for 120 days from purchase, and each segment has to be booked through Amtrak before you board.

For the City of New Orleans alone it is not worth buying. Coach from Chicago to New Orleans sampled at $123, a quarter of the pass price. It pays when this train is one leg of a bigger loop — stopping off in Memphis and Jackson, say, then west on the Sunset Limited or north-east on the Crescent — and only if you are happy to sit up for the nights on board.

Checked November 2026 against amtrak.com/usa-rail-pass (opens in a new tab).

The City of New Orleans runs every day, so a stopover costs only a day: get off, stay the night, and take the same train on the next evening or afternoon. The places below are listed from north to south; Chicago has its own cards on the California Zephyr's page.

Three places to stay, all in hotels of the 1920s: the Peabody in Memphis with its ducks, the old King Edward in Jackson, and the Pontchartrain on St. Charles Avenue at the New Orleans end.

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