Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central to Monday morning rail
Got fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty five sacks of mail
We're all out on the southbound odyssey
As the train pulls out of Kankakee
Rolls past the houses, farms, and fields
Passing towns that have no name
And the freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of rusted automobiles

Dealing cards with the old men in the club car
And it's penny a point there ain't no one keeping score
Won't you pass that paper bag that holds the bottle
You can hear the wheels a rumbling through the floor
And the sons of Pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their fathers' magic carpet made of steel
And the mothers with their babes asleep
Rocking to the gentle beat
The rhythm of the rails is all they dream

Midnight on the City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee
We're halfway home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness rolling to the sea
Then all the towns and people
Seem to fade into a bad dream
The old steel rail it ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his song again
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearin' railroad blues