Amtrak resumes full Chicago-to-New Orleans service after flooding

Amtrak’s City of New Orleans is back on its full route between Chicago and Louisiana.

Since May, the train trip ended in Jackson for travelers headed south, another victim of this year’s Mississippi River flooding. The route south of Jackson has been closed because the Louisiana tracks were in danger, reports WJTV.

“They have to open the Bonnet Carré Spillway at a certain point in flooding,” Knox Ross of the Southern Rails Commission told WJTV. “And when they do that it becomes dangerous for passenger trains to get into New Orleans.”

Not only was the closure an inconvenience for passengers forced to find alternatives to the popular train route, it cost Amtrak money.

“If they’re going to ride a bus, they’re just not going to buy a ticket, so all of that is at Amtrak expense,” Ross continued. “So when the Bonnet Carré Spillway opens they can’t run the trains. They have to be serviced here in Jackson or Memphis and Amtrak has to pay for the buses.”

“It’s the convenience, it’s the comfort and the fast time that it takes so it’s … better than the bus,” a passenger said.

The City of New Orleans makes the trip every day from Chicago to New Orleans, making seven stops in Mississippi, and then returns. It’s roughly 19 hours one way for the full trip.

For more information and to purchase tickets, go to Amtrak.com.