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The sun rises as the Sunset Limited travels through Texas on its way from San Antonio to Alpine
PHOTOGRAPHS KRIS DAVIDSON@hellokrisdavidson
ROAD TRIPS MIGHT BE A RITE OF PASSAGE IN THE USA BUT IT’S THE RAILROAD THAT BUILT THE NATION, PUSHING THE FRONTIER ALL THE WAY WEST ACROSS THE CONTINENT. AND NO TRAIN PLAYS A MORE IMPORTANT PART IN THE STORY OF AMERICAN EXPANSION THAN THE LEGENDARY SUNSET LIMITED.
INAUGURATED IN 1894, THIS TRANSCONTINENTAL ROUTE IS THE OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY RUNNING TRAIN SERVICE IN AMERICA. IT’S THE RAILROAD EQUIVALENT OF ROUTE 66 – AN EPIC EAST-WEST JOURNEY. YET MOST AMERICANS DON’T EVEN KNOW IT EXISTS.
THOUGH IT WASN’T THE FIRST ROUTE TO COMPLETE THE COAST-TO-COAST LINK, THE SUNSET LIMITED WAS THE FASTEST, SLASHING THE JOURNEY TIME TO JUST FOUR DAYS AND, ARGUABLY, MARKING THE USA’S EMERGENCE AS A MODERN NATION.
FROM WOODED CREEK TO CITY SKYLINE TO CACTUS-STUDDED DESERT, IT’S LIKE WATCHING THE PAGES OF A GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOK FLICKER PAST THE TRAIN WINDOW. AND JUST AS IT HAS FOR THE LAST CENTURY, THE JOURNEY BEGINS ON THE MUDDY BANKS OF THE MISSISSIPPI, SET TO A SOUNDTRACK OF JAZZ.
Darryl ‘Dancing Man’ Young encourages bystanders to join a street-corner performance in New Orleans’ French Quarter
ILLUSTRATION: NIK NEVES
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Mile 0
A downpour has just cracked above the French Quarter. Rain streams from the gutters but the bad weather hasn’t dampened spirits, and a crowd has gathered as Dancing Man begins his show. Clad in a white shirt and razor-creased trousers, a black-and-gold sash slung across his chest, he shimmies across the street, following the beat set by a musician in a jaunty top hat and feather boa. He beckons the crowd to join in, and before long, Dancing Man’s show has become a full-blown street party.
‘That’s how things roll in New Orleans,’ he explains, strolling past the clapboard houses along Royal Street. ‘We say “laissez les bons temps rouler” – let the good times roll. That’s what life here’s about.’
Dancing Man – aka Darryl Young – has become something of a legend in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Born and bred in the 9th Ward, one of the city’s poorest areas, and trained as a chef, since the storm he’s embraced a new career as a dance leader, inspired by the old New Orleans tradition of the Second Line – the informal procession that forms behind the first line of mourners and musicians during a traditional funeral, as the coffin travels from church to cemetery.
‘The Second Line is the spirit of New Orleans,’ Darryl says. ‘Even in sadness, we make things joyful. When life gets hard, we just party harder, baby!’ he says, sashaying all the way to Frenchmen Street, where the city’s most famous jazz joints are located – legendary names like the Spotted Cat, Snug Harbor and the Blue Nile. It’s early evening, but the entertainment’s already in full swing. Jazz and blues drift out from bar doorways and on a street-corner a brass band is blasting out When The Saints Go Marching In. Darryl can’t resist gliding into the throng of onlookers and soon has everyone jigging and hopping to the beat. It’s a reassuring sight: Katrina may have flattened neighbourhoods, but it could never snuff the city’s zest for life.
The party will continue into the small hours but for passengers on the Sunset Limited, tomorrow means an early start. The next morning at 9am, the train hauls out of New Orleans’ Union Passenger Terminal, clattering past the curves of the Superdome, crossing the 4.35-mile Huey P Long Bridge and heading west towards Louisiana’s backwaters. City streets fade into creeks and bayous. Old oaks lean over the water, and willow trees droop along the mud-banks, festooned with curtains of moss. Herons strut in the shallows, and somewhere in the murky water, alligators lurk.