Saturday was National Train Day and there were some festivities at Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans. New Orleans is a very strategic rail hub. Not only do all of the major freight railroads converge here (at the port,) but there are also three long distance Amtrak trains that depart daily from the Crescent City (The Crescent to Washington, DC, the City of New Orleans to Chicago and the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles. The train day festivities had lots of quality promotional material (Amtrak has a great ad agency,) some vintage railcars and current Amtrak rolling stock on display. I was pleased with the amount of interested participants and hope that the day’s festivities will raise awareness of the necessity of improving our national rail service.