Train travel was such fun when I was a kid in the 1940s

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I just read a @jaboUK discussion asking "Have you ever been on a train" and it triggered may memories of train travel when I was between the ages of four and seven. I lived in Texas with my mother. World War II was raging in Europe and in the Pacific as well. My three grown sisters (in their 20s then) lived in Florida. Two worked for Civil Service at what was then Boca Raton Air Force Base (Army Air Base back then maybe) near Fort lauderdale. The oldest sister was a nurse. We were invited, I guess, to go there and live. We took the passenger train from San Antonio to Fort Lauderdale. It was a steam engine train, the steam fed by coal, so black coal smoke blew back toward the cars. There was no air conditioning, so if windows were open the nasty smell of the smoke got in the cars. I recall being nauseated by it as we pulled in to New Orleans. Being war time, the trains were full of soldiers in uniform. I traded comic books with them and had fun on the trip. Meals were served in the dining car by African-American waiters in starched white jackets. I recall the oatmeal being delicious. I am not sure how long the journey took back then, but we had the luxury of sleeping in the Pullman car, real beds with curtains around them, upper and lower. That was not the end of my train travels. My mother and I went back to Texas after a year or so, then to Ohio, where my oldest sister had moved with her husband, then back to Texas when I was seven. Since then, I have only ridden a train once or twice in the states, but rode trains a lot when I visited Italy. Can you add to this train travel saga that @jaboUK started?