(The Associated Press circulated the following article on December 5.)
CHICAGO — When the “City of New Orleans” pulls out of Chicago’s Union Station tomorrow evening on its nightly run to the Big Easy, there will be some special passengers aboard.
Singer Arlo Guthrie and other musical guests will be using the trip as a fund-raiser for New Orleans victims of Hurricane Katrina. They will perform on the Amtrak train, and do brief concerts at stops on the way down to the Crescent City.
The song “Riding on the City of New Orleans,” written by the late Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Goodman, has been the biggest and most enduring hit of Guthrie’s career. It also led Amtrak to change the name of its evening train.
Goodman wrote the song about a morning train, which was discontinued in 1971, but after the song became a hit, Amtrak renamed the evening “Panama Limited” in the song’s honor.