I’m going to Chicago next week for 3 days for a transit conference. Any suggestions on where to spend a few hours to catch-up on transit or commuter rail? I’m riding the Orange line in from Midway and have riden the South Shore, ex IC electric and BN service as well as about half of the CTA.
Thanks!
The well-known Roosevelt Road overpass is still a good spot as it spans the approach to La Salle St. Station (Rock Island) and the south approach to Union Station, (BNSF, NS, IC/ex-GM&O). Monroe Street just east of Michigan Avenue spans the Randolph St. Station approach.
Metra sells a $5.00 unlimited weekend pass although weekend service is less frequent.
Vermont Street, Blue Island can also be interesting for the combination of Rock and MED trains, as well as IAIS on the Rock.
In terms of CTA locations, the on-going line reconstruction/station expansion work on the north side (at Belmont) is worth seeing, though the transfer bridge at Belmont is gone, so a fine and famous photo location has been lost! Ashland/Lake on the Green and Pink Lines has a nice old Lake Street “pagoda”-style station and in the mid-afternoon, you can take some good shots off the east end of the platform of trains with the skyline as the backdrop. Most Pink Line trains will have a 2200 pair on one end or the other, so this is a chance to shoot the oldest cars in the revenue fleet.
Far north/west end of the Blue Line (beyond Jefferson Park) is almost all slow zones, so the ride is no fun out there these days. Block signals on the Milwaukee Avenue elevated piece of the Blue Line (south from Western Avenue) have probably less than a year to remain in service, so you might want to ride out that direction.
Hope this helps! Art
If you can get to the museum of science and industry, check their new HO layout that replaced the O scale.
If you’re taking the Orange line from MDW, you can exit at Clark/Lake and walk 5 blocks west on Lake St across the river. There, you can easily observe the action on the leads from Ogilvie station (Metra UP-N, NW, and W lines, although it is elevated at this point) and the north leads from Union station (Metra MILW-N and W, Amtrak Empire Builder and Hiawathas). Of course, the most action will be at weekday rush periods.