Memories you never forget
We were in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, it was the last week in November 1945.
We were to report to a certain building at 1:00 p.m. to get our discharge. You can bet we were there on time.
They paid us up to date and gave us all one hundred dollars more, as we were suppose to receive that amount for the first three months.
We also had a physical and talked to a vocation specialist, they sewed the emblem of the Honorable Discharge on your tunic and we were ready to go home. We had talked a number of times about the best and quickest way to go north from Shelby.
As I remember the Illinois Central Railroad went north through Jackson and an express went north and south each day.
Looking back at that day and time, I’m going to deviate a little from the main issue but still some fond memories.
At that time the railroads were the main way to travel and this Illinois Central, going north and south through the United States carried a lot of passengers like the I–75 does now.
There was a fast express train that left Chicago every morning headed for New Orleans and one just like it left New Orleans headed for Chicago. Then at night the same thing happened again, but these trains were mail trains and they made a lot of stops at the little towns along the way.
This story was taking place in 1945 and I don’t think those trains had been named yet. Two trains on the Illinois Central going each way every 24 hours.
Starting two years later, in 1947, the southern bound day train leaving Chicago was named The City of New Orleans. That was a famous train that made that 934 miles in 15 hours and averaged 60 mph. A country song writer had a hit song about that train, The City of New Orleans. That song was on the charts for a long time.
The night train that left Chicago south bound was called The Panama Limited.
I have done a lot of research and I cannot find anywhere the names of the two daily trains that left New Orleans and headed north into Chicago.
That night train was a sleeper and that is the train we rode from Jackson, Mississippi to Chicago. I really enjoyed that ride. I was going home, I had a good meal and was looking forward to sleeping on a train.
See ya!
