It’s Sunday. We left Birmingham just before 4 p.m., nearly four hours behind schedule. The rains that swelled the lakes in our state slowed the train.

That, and the train had mechanical trouble, something that has happened for as long as trains ran on track.

Bessemer is next. It used to be the rail hub for this area.

We passed by the station doing about 50. A man on a Honda Goldwing motorcycle wearing a long-sleeve Auburn shirt with his woman seated behind him waved.

“As long as there are trains, there will be old men and little boys to wave at them.”

— Lewis Grizzard

The scenery outside Birmingham is post-industrial at first — My, how this area has changed over the last 100 years. The sprawling, new warehouses of eastern Jefferson County were next. They will build a new rail hub here soon. It will rekindle what once was: the main rail hub for the greater Birmingham area.

Soon come the pastures, with livestock grazing and rows of bee boxes out, ready to pollinate this year’s harvest.

Our six-year-old says his favorite parts of travelling by train are playing paper football, walking around on the train and looking out the window. My wife and I share the same likes: we don’t have to sit forward looking out one window, we can get up and move around, and in many ways, more free than any vehicle or plane.

When we entered the station in Birmingham it was packed — standing room only from the lobby up to the platform.

There were still a lot of people on the platform. Well-traveled train people know the platform is open as long as the gate from the terminal is.

It was the Sunday before Spring Break. I’m sure that had something to do with it. I’m also sure the price of gas, hovering near $4 a gallon, and the $30 per day parking in New Orleans also played a part.

Many people want the government to stop subsidizing trains and I am one of them. There were two private lines that used to run through St. Clair County. Now the nearest stops are Birmingham or Anniston.

Each year we get a room, because we have children and are blessed with the ability to pay for one. Plus, there’s nothing worse than a crying baby on a nice train ride, so we keep the baby away from riders if we can.

On through the countryside, where 100-year-old homes are, I saw six boys of varying ages shooting ball in a trailer park where the court was whatever patches of ground had been worn by, I’m guessing, hundreds of hours of play.

I had a court like that at my mom’s house. Shooting from the free-throw line it was: driveway on the right, grass on the left, split down the middle. We played a lot of Horse and Around the World at my house.

By nightfall we reached the part of the trip where the wasted lands from Hurricane Katrina lay. But it was too dark to see outside, and I was glad of it.

As someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast, I’m tired of talking about Ivan and Katrina. Americans are resilient.

And so are the Japanese, who are facing imminent nuclear disaster each minute after the fallout from last week’s devastating earthquakes.

For a time the train made up its delay, but we rolled into New Orleans, the last stop, at 11:15 p.m. My family are veterans of the rails, which is good, because more and more people will be riding them as gas prices continue to rise and our economy doesn’t.

I won the last paper football game, 50-29, minutes before we rolled into one of our nation’s oldest cities.

My wife was resting with the one-year-old in the upper berth.

Some people go to the beach or even Disney World for Spring Break. I’ll take the train to New Orleans any day.