1. Riding on the City of New Orleans, Illinois Central, Monday morning rail.

2. Dealing cards to the old men in the club car, penny a point, and no one`s keeping score.

3. Nighttime on the City of New Orleans, changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.

1. Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders, three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

2. Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle, you can feel the wheels grumbling `neath the floor.

3. Halfway home, and we`ll be there by morning, through the Mississippi darkness rollin` to sea.

1. All on a southbound odyssey, the train pulls out of Kankakee, rolls past horses, farms and fields.

2. The sons of Pullman porters, and the sons of engineers ride their father`s magic carpet made of steel.

3. But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream, the steel rail hasn`t heard the news.

1. Passing trains that have no name, and freight yards full of old black men, and the graveyards of rusted automobiles. ...

2. And mothers with their babies asleep, are rocking to the gentle beat, the rhythm of rails is all they feel.

3. The conductor sings his song again, it`s “Passengers will please refrain!“ This train`s got the Disappearing Railway Blues.

Good morning, America, how are you? Hey, don`t you know me, I`m your native son.

I`m the train they call the City of New Orleans, and I´ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.