Good morning, America. How are you? Say don’t you know me? I’m your native son. I’m the train they call the city of New Orleans, and I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

– Willie Nelson, “City of New Orleans”

Some people in Mount Olive, Collins, and Seminary got quite a surprise on Friday, June 7, 2019 as they saw one of the best known trains in America, made famous by Willie Nelson’s song “City of New Orleans,” detour from Jackson to Hattiesburg as it traveled from Chicago to New Orleans. With severe flooding ongoing in southern Mississippi and eastern Louisiana, the train has been beginning and ending in Jackson with charter buses completing the trip between Jackson and New Orleans for the past several weeks. The detour was part of a special train that completed the entire route. The photo shown here was taken by reader Michael Sumrall at the Collins Main Street railroad crossing.

Photo/(Submitted) Michael Sumrall