Well I just got back from a couple of days in Chicago. It’s been forever since I spent any time down there train riding/watching so, after a few attempts, I managed it. My travelogue, if anyone is interested:
Day One
Drive to Green Bay, bus to Milwaukee. We can dispense with the details on this part of the journey, since it has no trains and noting of note happened. Usually, the next step is a Hiawatha to Chicago-but not this time. Instead…
Bus to Kenosha Metra. We’ll ride the North Western into Chicago today. (What? I meant “Metra’s UP North Line?” No, I didn’t. I always knew it as the North Western and I always will. Besides, it’s still left hand running so UP must not really mean it, right?). This part almost went awry thanks to having to stop to put a drunk off the bus. But thanks to a young man that sprinted up the stairs at the Kenosha station to catch our train, we all made it.
North Line to Clybourn. Our 2:49pm departure go us into Clybourn at 4:20pm to watch the outbound rush on both the North and Northwest lines. Why not watch them all from downtown? Well, I have done that in the past (long past) and I wanted to see trains on the road not in the terminal.
Leave for North Western Station (yeah, I know-Ogilvie Transportation Center…see above) at 6:46pm, after watching 11 inbound (6 on the North Line, 5 on the Northwest) and 25 outbound (12 North, 13 Northwest) trains, if my schedule reading is correct.
Lunch to go at Panda Wok and off to Union Station for a 7:40pm outbound BNSF to Brookfield at 8:02pm.
If you do it on a weekend Metra has s weekend pass for under $10 that lets you ride as much as you can in two days. Trains had an article about cramming in as much as you can back in the 80s.
My experience when I lived there was it hadn’t changed much in the thirty years I was there. The schedules are on the Metra website so it should be possible to coordinate trips
No, I kind of caught things on the fly for the most part-gas station English muffin and Chinese to go from the food court at North Western Station. The only planned mealtime was lunch on day #2 since I had a couple of hours in Blue Island. I found a place called Tuscan Pizza that had a healthy spinach salad and a less than healthy sirloin tip appetizer. I couldn’t decide which so I had both. The good news was that I didn’t have to eat for the rest of the day. The bad news is that my doctor wants me to drop 15 pounds, anyway and that sure didn’t help!
Thanks for the great travelogue, Kevin. It was fun even (especially?) for a native Chicagoan like myself. Your critique of of the dump akaUnion Station was right on.
Gotta put in a kind word for the Metro, the bar/cafeteria that is the only vestige of commercial life on the Great Hall side. They’ve got Sam Adams on tap. I enjoyed a couple of those, and was going to eat lunch there too – but they’ve unaccountably discontinued their hot dogs.
Sounds like you had a good time while here, but you’ve only scratched the surface.
As for Western Avenue, it’s true that the UP West Line doesn’t have as strong a rush hour as its Northwest or North counterparts. Next time you may want to get to where the MILW line goes underneath the throat at OTC (or CPT, if you date from a certain era), and you’ll get all of the UP scoots.
The North Central line doesn’t have weekend service, so its institution doesn’t affect what you can do with the Weekend Pass. However, Southwest Service added Saturday trips since the Trains article about the Weekend Pass, so now it’s even less possible to cover the territory.
I might do that next time-maybe catch Roosevelt Road for the other rush, too. This trip was successful enough that I’m already planning the next one-probably in May/June, for milder weather and longer daylight. The reason I did this one so late in the year was that I only really thought of it a month ago.
Maybe I’ll stick close for one rush hour and do some travel to the end of line on one of the routes during the rest of the day. I’ll hit up everybody here for suggestions.
Roosevelt Road is a great option. There is always activity. Was there yesterday for a quick trip into Whole Foods…speaking of which, you can grab a good lunch there while watching the train action. Or better yet run around the block to Manny’s Deli.
But, before you leave you gotta have a beef and should also grab a Maxwell Street Polish. Or an Italian Sub at Damato’s Deli on Grand Avenue.