No, I think anyone with half a brain cell had a clew that the railroad,
called the Illinois Central, went to Chicago, not to mention it was
one of two major north-south railroads serving Mississippi.
Look: You're being a total ignoramus. Illinois Central was key to the
black migration. Every school child who learned anything about 20th
century American history knows this. Certain Chicago newspapers, like
the Chicago Defender, convinced blacks living in the south that they
could escape lynching and come north for a better life. It wasn't
as bad as poor white immigrants from Europe being told that the
streets of America were paved with gold and they should cross the Atlantic
to escape Europe's non-stop warfare, but it was pretty close.
Pullman porters would brings bundles of Chicago newspapers to the south
for distribution via the Illinois Central. It was simply too difficult
to be a black newspaper publisher in the south. The train, itself, would
be used for migration, and for people like Virgil who were travelling
from Chicago to visit older relatives who themselves never made the
migration.
Illinois Central had a large demand for passenger business well into
the 1960s, unlike many other railroads, because of these factors.
This is pretty basic United States history.