Painting Word Pictures With Steve Goodman's 'City of New Orleans'

Chicago native Steve Goodman.

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

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors, twenty-five sacks of mail

All along the southbound odyssey, the train pulls out of Kankakee
And rolls along past houses, farms and fields

Passing towns that have no name, and freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobile.

Good morning, America, how are you"
Say, don't you know me, I'm your native sun
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

This paints quite a word picture at this point.  I don't know about you, but I can sure see that train chugging along.

Good Ol' Steve.  --RoadRail