Norm Cohen wrote the following in the booklet for Various Artists 'Mystery Train: Classic Railroad Songs Vol 2' Rounder CD 1129:

In 1970, Goodman and his wife of a few months took the Illinois Central's 'City of New Orleans' from Chicago to southern Illinois to visit her grandmother. His wife had just fallen asleep and Goodman began peering out of the window, jotting down all the things he saw. When he got back to Chicago, a friend told him that there was talk of taking that train out of service soon because passenger traffic had been so light. He urged Goodman to turn his prose observations into a song and help save the train. Goodman fleshed out his own observations with some additional material and recorded the song on his first album in 1971.

--Stewie.