Stim: IC added coaches to the Panama a couple of years before the takeover. It's been awhile but I recall the gripe having to do mostly with City/State pride and corporate marketing. Seemed like the names got dropped, and picked up again with every local newspaper editorial. Not very deep thinking really. They were all pretty good trains for what you needed.

For me Goodman's "City of New Orleans" was the train Guy Clark watched go by in "Texas 1947." Decades later it's Goodman's "era" passing but from the perspective of the rider. Hardly unique to any one transport. Generations of Morans probably groused about "progress" from the Erie "Cun-all" on down but we still got all those big white "M"s buzzing (diesel-electric) about the waterfronts. Every thing in its time and place.

I traded up my nickels smashed flatter than dimes for Cadwelds®. The best stuff was the narrow gauge steam still hanging on in the sugar and lumber mills (with steam-driven works to go with.) Give a modern-day safety monitor a myocardial infarction but they were glorious.