High Iron Travel's "Southern Explorer"
Rare Mileage Excursion
May 25-30, 2010
Part 6, Meridian, Miss.
| We had a fast, uneventful bus ride from Linden, Ala., to Meridian, Miss., while the M&B RR was taking the cars over. After a leisurely breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we adjourned to the new Union Station, replicated from the original, and which serves intercity buses and Amtrak's Crescent. Some folks had left our group in Pensacola; we dropped off a few more at MEI (Meridian) airport to get rental cars; and a few in our group would take northbound Crescent #20, while the remainder would take southbound Crescent #19. |
| This is the view from the interior 2nd-floor balcony eastward on the observation deck of the depot. |
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| Looking down on some of our group in the depot. Left center, Nona Hill (blue shirt) and right center, Mike Rose of Toledo (also a blue shirt) look back up at us. In between them, Ralph Alvarez, of York, Pa., who's in his 90's, looks up at us too; he's in a light shirt with open jacket. Elevator to the 2nd floor is behind the pillar at right. Beyond the upper left corner are more benches and beyond them, the Amtrak ticket office. Off to the lower left and under the balcony is the bus ticket office. Tracks are to our left, street to our right; we are looking generally southwest here. |
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| Beware of the dog! Greyhound 6565 stops at Meridian; this is a one- way bus-only loading "track." Photo taken from the open obs deck. Beyond the depot are ex-Railway Express etc., two buildings, now part of the local RR museum. |
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| Even if you haven't heard a horn, at any depot you KNOW Amtrak is approaching when the baggage truck goes out on the platform!. No. 20 is almost here. |
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| John Downing, at left, mechanic/attendant on our PV Swift Stream, assists Ralph Alvarez and Al Butler (of Boston), who'll board #20 for Baltimore, where Al left his car. He'll take Ralph home to York, Pa., and drive on home to Boston. Al had a career on NYC-PC as a track dept. manager. |
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| Here comes #20. |
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| Passengers for #20 included a local high school group on a class trip. |
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| Meridian is crew change and smoke stop, too, so not all those people are new boardings. |
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| Unlike most of Chicago's Superliner trains, the Crescent has its sleepers on the rear! |
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| Departing, about to cross the KCS (ex-GM&O) diamonds. |
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| The RR museum next door has a large HO layout, plus a nice gallery of photos, mostly by J. Parker Lamb, a Meridian native. Many of his photos, and you'll see many on this display, have been in TRAINS and CLASSIC TRAINS. |
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| I had to pose an Ingles below Lamb's photo of the only Ingalls diesel ever built -- GM&O 1900. Ingalls Shipbuilding Co. is in Pascagoula, Miss., on the Gulf due south of Meridian 100 miles or so. |
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| Robert West's rendition of the "ultimate perfect Meridian depot scene," with, from left, an Illinois Central steam engine (Meridian was the east end of IC predecessor Alabama & Vicksburg); GM&O's Gulf Coast Rebel; Southern's Southerner; a northbound GM&O freight behind FA's: and a Meridian & Bigbee Geep switching. |
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