Archive for September 27th, 2008
September 27th, 2008
SCOTT MORGAN | ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
Sleeping Car Attendant Larry Myers on the City of New Orleans Amtrak train bound for Chicago on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, getting ready to leave New Orleans, La.
Larry Myers, 35, is our sleeping car attendant on the up train back to Chicago. He’s following the election with great interest — his job may be on the line depending on who is elected.
John McCain is a persistent foe of Amtrak. Barack Obama supports the government-created passenger rail system, and his vice presidential pick, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, rides Amtrak trains every day from Wilmington, Del., to Washington, D.C. and back. Biden wants to greatly expand the rail network.
“I watched the debate. I liked it,” Myers said about the first presidential debate Friday night, staged at Ole Miss in Oxford.
“On the economy, I liked what Obama said. He was talking about balancing the budget, and of the different plans on the bailout. I was trying to figure that out. Some people say that Bush messed up on his watch. I don’t really know.”
Myers talked about service cutbacks on Amtrak trains. The City of New Orleans, on which we’re riding, used to have an observation car that served drinks and snacks. Now that’s gone and there’s just a dining car, called the “Cross Country Cafe.” Sleeping car passengers don’t get the amenities they used to, said Myers, who is based out of New Orleans.
“Maybe if the right person gets in (as president), we’ll get more jobs here. They’ve been cutting back all through the four years I’ve been here. I think we have more managers than on-board staff.”
One thing in Amtrak’s favor is its growing popularity — the national rail company is enjoying record ridership and could handle more customers if it could afford to purchase more rolling stock. Faced with $4 gasoline, more people are choosing to ride trains. But they can’t always book a seat. Amtrak can’t buy new coaches because Congress gives it just enough money every year to limp along. No form of transportation makes money, and all require government subsidies, but Amtrak is last on the totem pole after airports, airlines, autos and rivers.
Myers, who provided exemplary service throughout our journey, said that in nearby Mississippi, where he lives, he knows a lot of people who have never voted in their lives but are determined to vote this year.
“Most of them are saying they’re going to vote for Obama. They don’t understand about hockey moms and all that, and I don’t, either. I’m worrying about how to put more money in my pocket.”
Myers, a widower, was a barber for 12 years before he went to work on the railroad. “I wanted to try something different. Now, this is my regular route. It’s a great job. I used to work The Crescent, from New Orleans to New York.”
September 27th, 2008
SCOTT MORGAN | ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR
Lauren Williamson, 18, and Patrick O’Neill, 19, of Pass Christian, Miss. ride the St. Charles Ave. street car Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, in New Orleans, La.
ON THE ST. CHARLES AVE. STREETCAR — When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, Pass Christian, Miss., was among the hardest hit areas. “I’d say our town was 90 percent destroyed,” said Patrick O’Neill, 19, a student at Jefferson Davis Community College in Pass Christian.
He was visiting New Orleans with his friends Lauren Williamson, 18, and Madeline Carter, 17. Patrick and his family spent six months living in a tent after the hurricane destroyed their home. Then they moved up a notch to a Gulfstream trailer. Only in the last six months has his family moved back into their rebuilt home.
“We were hit pretty hard by Camille, and then Katrina came and it was worse. But we are rebuilding Pass Christian,” Carter said, with emphasis. She said the three of them had come to New Orleans to tour the campus of Tulane University, which is on the St. Charles line.
Carter has a scholarship to attend the school to major in Latin American studies and pursue a career in international development. “I might delay it for a year to serve in AmeriCorps,” Carter said.
The vintage 1920s streetcar made its way past the grand monument to Robert E. Lee (something you won’t see in Chicago) and along the St. Charles Avenue boulevard featuring posh houses and mansions, churches and synagogues, Loyola and Tulane universities and the Audubon Zoo.
I asked my traveling streetcar companions if they’d seen Friday night’s presidential debate. Three heads nodded in the affirmative. (Patrick and Lauren will be voting in their first election. Carter is 17 and can’t vote yet.)
“I think McCain did pretty well at first, but he started to slip later on. Obama was much better at the end,” Lauren said.
“McCain did great, and I had heard that McCain was an awful debater. I didn’t see the flaws that others have seen,” said Patrick, adding that he’s “leaning toward Obama but still undecided.”
Both Lauren and Patrick said they believe America should continue to be a world leader but set a better example than it has been recently.
“I don’t’ think we should be a super police force,” Patrick said. “I do think we meddle too much in other countries,” Lauren added.
September 27th, 2008
ON BOARD THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS — A year ago homebuilder Joel Smith from Lexington, Miss., was going strong. The president and part owner of Safeway Homes, Smith managed 150 workers who built affordable, modular houses that could withstand 160 mph. winds. There’s a big market for this sort of house in the Gulf Coast areas of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
Safeway decided to take advantage of a government program to provide provided incentives to companies to construct affordable or “workforce” housing so that average folks could afford to move back to the Gulf Coast as the area rebuilt from Hurricane Katrina.
Joel’s company signed up for the program and built 200 modular homes to be shipped to sites in southern Mississippi, believing he’d be helped. But Gov. Haley Barbour decided to use the federal money — $600 million worth – to rebuilding the state’s seaports, Smith said. Long story short: Safeway had to close its factory. It is now in the process of filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
So, Joel and wife Adriana had gone to New Orleans for a few days to de-stress a little. Yes, he told me, he watched part of Friday’s presidential debate. But he was not impressed.
“If you’ve seen one debate you’ve seen them all,” he said. He’s not enthused about politics, and who could blame him after what he’s been through.
But Smith, 66, will vote, as he always has.
“I’ve been a Republican for 40 years, and I think I’m at a place where I have no choice as to who I’ll vote for. I won’t vote for Obama, and not because he’s black. I just feel his philosophy of government would set this country back 50 years. I feel like McCain is the only chance we have of stopping all he pork barrel spending, and the programs that cause us to go deeper in debt.”
His first choice for president would have been Mike Huckabee, “who has good morals and a conscience. I think he understands the problems we have in America, and when you get down to it, we have a spiritual problem. Just walk down Bourbon Street. It’s so degrading to the female gender.”
He wishes McCain would have picked Huckabee as his running mate, but he concedes that if McCain had to pick a woman, “Sarah Palin is a good choice. She has moral fiber.”
Smith reluctantly supports a bailout for the financial industry, but only because “I don’t know how they can survive without it. It’s a band aid, though. They’ll print more money to lend to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and J.P. Morgan. They’ll print it, and you and I will have to pay it back, if it gets paid at all.”
Part of America’s problem, Smith says, is that we’ve become an “I’m going to have it now, I don’t care if I lose it tomorrow” society. Both the Republicans and the Democrats buy into this warped philosophy, he says, “and they’re both wrong.”
Smith says “fruitcakes who don’t want to drill for oil” have made us beholden to foreign and often hostile oil producing countries that wish us harm. “T. Boone Pickens has a good idea. We’ve got billions and billions of cubic feet of natural gas and we don’t have to go anywhere to get it.”
As the Smiths prepared to leave the train at Jackson, I wished them well. I meant it.
Reach Political Editor Chuck Sweeny at 815-987-1372 or csweeny@rrstar.com.
SCOTT MORGAN | RRSTAR.COM
Joel and Adriana Smith of Lexington, Miss., wait for the train Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008, in New Orleans, La. Smith’s modular home company, Safeway Homes, went bankrupt after the State of Mississippi redirected $600 million to rebuild ports instead of building homes.
September 27th, 2008
Scott Morgan and I arrived in New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal yesterday at 4 p.m., within minutes of our scheduled arrival. That means we made up for almost all the delays caused by freight trains. Freight railroads, on which most Amtrak trains travel, are required to give priority to Amtrak trains and make their freights wait. But they often — some say usually – ignore that requirement.
The trip was pleasant, our crew was friendly, helpful and fun. The food was good — it was included in our ticket price. So, a 2,000 mile round trip from Chicago to New Orleans and back, with a roomette and complementary meals, can be had for $400 round trip. If you’d rather travel by coach class, where you’ll find wide, comfortable reclining seats, the round trip fare is $216. You could bring your own food on board or buy it in the dining car. So, kudos to Amtrak for the service on the down train. At 1:45 p.m. today, our “up” train journey begins.
Last night, Scott and I had a look-see around the French Quarter, which is literally around the corner from our hotel on St. Charles. The famed St. Charles Ave. Line streetcars go right past our front door. The 80-year old cars survived the 2005 hurricane and flood. We crossed Canal Street and walked down Chartres Street, where we saw the famed restaurant K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, opened in 1979 by Chef Paul Prudhomme and his wife, K, hence, K-Paul. K died a few years back, but Paul continues on. I said to Scott, “hey, I’ve heard of that,” and we decided to stop in. Though the place was busy and we had no reservations, we were cheerfully and quickly accommodated with a table on the second floor veranda of the 1834 building. The food — we both had the blackened drum fish — was wonderful, and surprisingly affordable.
