| Hoping to take advantage of the anticipated increase in passenger flow heading to the 1984 Worlds Fair in New Orleans, Amtrak hatched a plan to connect its Kansas City/St. Louis traffic to the southbound City of New Orleans. To accomplish this, a short run was needed between St, Louis and the IC main in south-central Illinois. Two potential routes were evaluated: the Southern, which would catch the CoNO in Centralia; and IC which would intercept in DoQuoin. Here, one of the evaluation trains checks out the IC line through Belleville. Eventually, however, the Southern route was selected, and the resultant River Cities would ply the rails from April 1984 until November 1993. |