As a student at the Univ. of Illinois in the early '60's, I often caught # 3 out of Chicago. It had a convenient early evening departure time, allowing me a full weekend at home and still being able to get back to school at a decent hour on Sunday night. NB # 4 was a different story as it arrived in Champagne way before dawn. Depending on my schoolwork, the Seminole, the City of New Orleans, and the Creole were my other workhorses. One SB trip on the City we had 26 cars and I clocked us from the obs at a mile every 32 seconds on the flats before Kankakee. On another trip the NB counterpart was allowed a 5 minute stop at Champagne, but to load the 600 students who got on took a half hour. Needless to say it was standing room only...and we arrived late.

On big holidays there were lots of student specials....sometimes 4 lined up ready to go, and I remember another memorable trip. We had 2 passenger geeps on the head end and were put out of Chicago 10 minutes AHEAD of the City of New Orleans. The geeps were slow and we wound up delaying the City an hour before we got to Champagne. The City was allowed 2 hours for the 126 mile trip, including several stops. Our special took 3 that day. Those specials often ran 15 to 20 cars and powered by geeps, but sometimes we got E units and could move right along.