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Here is my trip report from a little vacation from the Twin Cities to Chicago and Springfield, Illinois and back. I didn't take pictures this time and it seems very difficult to write these things without saying and then I did, and then I did and then I did and then I did, but here you have it anyway. I had a good time and these are all the observations I made on the way, whether interesting or Irrelevant, there all here and so.......begins....my stream of consciousness from my June 27th to July 1st trip. ------------------------------
Being summer and almost July 4th, the St. Paul station was quite busy as we waited for the train which was running about an hour late. I had to laugh a bit as an older man going to Lafayette, Indiana behind me as we were boarding about 8:45am said to his wife "this is the first and last time were taking the train because it's late!". Perhaps that was just pre-trip nervousness,or perhaps he laments every trip just before it starts, because he turned out to enjoy it and by the end of the trip was socializing, and playing cards with his wife in the lounge car, recommending the trip to his son on the phone. For myself, I was hoping the train wouldn't lose anymore time to Chicago in order to catch my next train, the 305 Lincoln service train to Springfield at 5:15pm. The trip down the River valley to La Crosse was it's usual mixture of green and blue colors and we raced across Wisconsin without having to slow down for any freight train traffic. I sat next to a young man in the Lounge who was "supposed" to be at work, so he was working for a while before he gave up and we visited a while. He was originally from La Crosse, but now lived in Chicago, and said he had taken the train back home to visit his parents probably 10-15 times by now. The national park service had their rails to trails volunteers describing the scenery as we went by on a little PA speaker in the lounge, which was interesting, except my table-mate said he had the presentation just about memorized from hearing the same script on several trips before.
I skipped breakfast, but did have lunch in the dining car and pleasantly visited with 2 middle aged ladies and their mother traveling from Oregon. They were quite fun to talk to and I mentioned to them that I was going to a play while in Chicago. After visiting a little more, we found out, of all strange coincidences, that we would meet again on Friday night at the Steppenwolf theatre in Lincoln Park for a performance of Sketchbook Program B! It seems one of the ladies daughter had written one of the plays that were featured, it being a collection of 10 shorts. So a few days later I would see them again. But I'm getting ahead of myself, after a quick stop in Milwaukee, I was getting pretty optimistic that I was going to make my next train as we had made up some time coming across Wisconsin. Not quite enough though, as we got into Chicago's North Side Suburbs we ran into the out-bound Rush of Metra Commuter trains on our tracks, and were slowed to a crawl trying to sneak in-bound to Union Station. The conductor made an announcement as we got close to the station of who was going to make their connecting trains to various points, what trains would be held a few minutes to wait for the connection and what would not. We pulled into Track 19 at the station about 5:35pm, so I missed mine by about 20 minutes. The St. Paul passengers are always in the last coach, so it is a bit of a hike from getting off the train to walking up the platform past the 12 cars or so and 2 locomotives . For those people who had connecting trains leaving between 5:30 and 6, Amtrak had someone at the station entrance doors directing people around the edge of station, so they would not have to walk through the maze of people which are going to and fro at the height of the evening rush-hour. This works pretty good for this train, as Track 19 is one of the few run-through tracks and the platform allows you to get from the the odd-numbered north-side concourse tracks to the even numbered south side tracks without having to enter the station. I had checked the schedules beforehand and knew there was another train I could catch at 7:00pm, so I wasn't in too much of a hurry. After walking to the Great Hall and waiting a bit, I walked to the South Concourse boarding gates to find a huge line for my train, the 307 to St. Louis. We were just about to board, and they decided to change gates for some reason. So our line turned around and moved across the room to a different gate. The first in line were now the last and the last were first. About 10 minutes before departure, they let us board the train. After finding my seat, a couple of minutes before leaving, a man in his early 70's or so came rushing on and sat next to me. He turned out to be from Dusseldorf Germany, had flown into O'hare from Amsterdam and was on the last leg of his trip to St. Louis. He had been traveling so long that not long after we left the station he fell asleep, which kind of trapped me in my window seat. Eventually I determined to wake him up so I could go to the cafe car to get something to eat, and I suggested we switch seats so I didn't have to wake him up when I had to get off in Springfield. He kindly agreed, and promptly was sleeping once again. In the cafe car was a young man who had a little too much to drink, speaking in a rather loud voice with others who also had had too much, but since they had had less than him, did not think they had had to much. There prime topic of conversation was baseball, one man being a St. Louis Cardinals fan and the others being Chicago Cubs fans. Cubs fans really don't have much of an argument since the Cards have traditionally been a much better team. They will kick you off for drinking to much, but he got off relatively quickly in Bloomington/Normal, so he made it to his station anyway. I had one of those prepared salads and some juice as we waited about 20 minutes just outside Joliet Union Station for a Northbound Amtrak 304 which was running late to make it to the station first. I think this line used to be double track all the way to St. Louis when it was the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. At some point, it was reduced to single track, and now Union Pacific Railroad is not maintaining the sidings in good order and it is difficult for opposing trains to meet quickly. The main track itself seemed to be in great shape as when we got going again we cruised along at a good clip with no slow downs.
It got dark before too long and we pulled into downtown Springfield about 10 before 11pm. Stepping off the train, I was a little directionally challenged being in a new city and walked a couple of blocks the wrong way, before being redirected by a local resident to the proper direction and promptly found my hotel the "Mansion View Inn", across the street from the Governor of Illinois' official executive mansion, although I understand the current governor rarely stays there. After getting to my room, I found the Springfield visitors bureau brochure and travel guide left in my room had a more detailed map than I had previously in my possession which showed the two train lines in the downtown area. The hotel was actually just a couple of blocks farther along the line than the train station, so all I would have had to do that night was follow the tracks, but not knowing better, I would have to use that lesson later. Springfield's downtown is bracketed by two railroad main lines maybe 10 blocks or less apart roughly signifying the extent of the downtown area. The UP and Amtrak route is on one side by the State capitol, and a well used Norfolk Southern freight route is on the other. The Amtrak station is the old GM&O station building, it still looks good and is in decent shape but not spectacular. There are actually a couple of other train stations still standing across town, one next to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is a recently restored and huge grand old station respective for this size of city, which I think was used by the Illinois Central Railroad at one time. There is quite a big clock tower and a city park around it. No train tracks though! You can walk through it , but you only find tourist information, and offices, no trains. On the other side of downtown next to the NS Freight route is the "Lincoln depot" whence Abe departed heading to Washington and made an Impromptu speech from the trains' open observation platform to a big crowd wishing him well and sending him off. I just walked past the building to see it, but there's not a whole lot to look at. I don't think there is one of those nighttime whistle bans in Springfield that some cities have, as I heard several trains on both routes before I went to sleep, but I slept through anything that came through in the night. By the end of my stay in Springfield I was getting good at judging which route and which direction the sound of the horn meant the train was coming from. There also seemed to be some train whistles which would blow and I would never see them, so I think there was another line somewhere slightly out of sight.
When I woke up the next morning and went outside, there was a light rain falling, so I ducked back in and grabbed a jacket, and headed for the Lincoln home. The tour was free and lasted about 20 minutes. If I had to do the trip again, I probably would have skipped that, and went to the Lincoln Tomb or something else instead. I noticed before and also on this home tour that I was hearing some people speak a distinct sort of accent. I don't know if it's kind of a central-southern Illinois accent, or something else, not quite a southern accent, but not Chicago or midwest either. Next up was the signature Lincoln site, the presidential museum. It really is quite special as those things go. I've never been to D.C., but I would say it's certainly a national Smithsonian type of museum. It took me maybe 3 and half hours to go through, and I took plenty of extra time. One room has changing exhibits and this summer is focused on Mary Todd Lincoln. "Lady of Controversy". I didn't know much about her, so it was really interesting. It seems when her and Lincoln met, she was quite well off, and was also fashionable,smart and very good at conversation about everything including politics, which is what attracted Abraham. As time went by, she had a little trouble coping with the pressure and stress of public life and had a reputation for over-spending. They also had two children die at a young age, and of course the war and Mr. Lincoln being assassinated was difficult for her to deal with. She also didn't seem to be quite as solid in her Christian faith as Abe, and after his death got mixed up somewhat with the wrong people involved in spiritualism for a time. I'm of course unsure how that all turned out for her, but the picture painted from the exhibit was of a very strong, attractive and talented woman beaten down as all are by life, aging and concerns of this world. Probably the best thing about the museum is it's realistic mannequins. There so real, it's really kind of creepy. When you walk in, people like to have their picture taken with the presidential family standing in front of a realistic "white house". Some of the other various exhibits are a young Abe in his one room "log cabin" where he grew up with his big family, Abe debating Stephen Douglas, Abe working in the law offices, a dramatic scene of a slave auction, and a room featuring all the editorial cartoons of the day savaging Lincoln and his policies and personal life in every way possible from every which direction. Every one of them pictured was 100% negative in a mean spirited way. Another highlight is a mock-up of the Ford's theater box with John Wilkes Booth, the Shakespeare actor, and assassin just behind the door. If I remember correctly, Lincoln had remarked that night to his wife that it was great to be able to "laugh" again as the play was a comedy and the war was very clearly over at this point in time. I thought it was cool to read that when Richmond Virginia fell to the Union and on the day Lincoln visited the city, he ordered the military band to play "Dixie" to show them some respect. Earlier in the war they apparently used to joke that they were going to "capture" the song "Dixie" as part of the spoils because everybody knew what a great song it was at the time, and of course still is.
I think the best and most moving exhibit is the room decorated for Lincoln's funeral with his casket as the centerpiece. Even though you know everyone on the earth who was living at the time is now dead, it still feels very much like a wake in the room.
After cruising through the gift shop and not being tempted to buy a Lincoln coffee mug, coaster, pen, doll, or candy, etc.... I walked back to where it would have made more sense to start the day, from an efficiency stand point, close to my hotel and went to the amazing Frank Lloyd Wright designed Dana-Thomas house. This closes pretty early in the day about 4:00pm, and I just made the last tour of the day thankfully. It was a guided tour, and we had about 15 people in our group. The tour guide was excellent as those things go, great knowledgeable info and order without being overbearing or acting like a school-marm holding our hands. Kind of hard to describe the house, most of the furnishings are still there and in excellent shape. I think the guide said one of the lamps had been purchased at a Christies auction for upwards of 700,000 dollars, so I tried to avoid knocking that one over. The house had both electric and gas lighting, a bowling alley in the basement, a water fountain inside, a great dining room with a balcony for the musicians, statues, all in all a house designed for throwing great parties for rich so-called friends, although it sounds like the owner was quite a mixed up person, at least she had a nice house even though she couldn't take it with her. Apparently the family had owned a lot of stock in the railroad, and the tracks are still in the same place immediately next to the house. In fact, a freight train went by as we were there. I guess the family had enough pull with the company that the passenger trains would stop specifically for them at their house if they wanted, and the freight trains could be stopped at the house to if they needed some sort of supplies or material. So that is a highly recommended tour. That was it for my "official" tourism, but after that I walked around the state capitol grounds, and down the street by the Lincoln law offices and the old state capitol. Continuing on my walk up to the Lincoln depot by the Norfolk Southern Freight tracks and followed the tracks past the hospital to get a sense for what Springfield was beyond the tourist area downtown. It was quite a striking experience. As soon as you get past the hospital, it was one of the poorest areas you will see in any American city. The sidewalks hadn't been fixed in decades, lawns not mowed all year, and every other house had big "no trespassing' or "beware of ***" signs. Goodwill had set up shop in what looked like an old abandoned railroad freight house and the only active businesses were convenience stores and a liquor store and bar. Pretty sad state of affairs, of course I'm sure there are suburbia type areas as you get farther away from the center city. Walked back downtown and had a great tasting hamburger and fries at a local sports bar with so-so service but great low prices. After that it was a caramel-vanilla shake at the cold-stone creamery. The crew at the counter broke into a short little song they sang together while they were getting the customers orders, I guess that's the usual thing in their chain. Good ice cream anyway. The tourist attractions were all closed by this time of night, and I didn't have anything better to do, so I walked down to the Amtrak train station and watched the southbound Texas Eagle to San Antonio arrive and depart and a northbound St. Louis to Chicago train come through.
The next Morning, I had to catch the 302 to Chicago at about 8:30am. There was about 60 people boarding in Springfield that day. After I found my seat about 10 guys all dressed in white t-shirts and gray jogging pants sat down beside me. It seems that they had all been in State Prison in Springfield, and being their sentences were up, a police officer brought them to the station and left them there to go back to their homes in Chicago. So this was their first few minutes and hours of freedom, for some of them,in many years. There were a couple of young guys, some middle age, and one older guy with gray hair. Some were quiet and didn't speak to anyone. A few started talking with each other, basically in a sort of put on type of one-upmanship way of speaking which you might expect prisoners to talk. And petty gambling like, OK 2 dollars on what time we arrive in Chicago. After they started speaking to each other in disrespectful ways about women, the conductor let them know if they wanted to make it to Chicago, they would have to stop talking like that since there were women and children aboard, and asked one guy if he knew anyone in Bloomington. Which one of the ex-prisoners thought was very funny, being that there was another state prison there from what I could gather. In the end, one of them thanked the conductor for being a good host as he stepped off the train, and he wished them good luck. I don't know how they will do, one guy went to the cafe car and got a beer and tried to encourage another to have one. The other one said that was really pathetic, two hours out of the state pen, and you have to drink, and he was trying to be sober, so to stop asking him about it. But before long we were getting into Chicago, and each them would say what street we were at and "let me off here" and how great it was to see Chicago houses again after only ever seeing the city on the TV news for such a long time. It was disheartening to hear one prisoner note to his mates that being a conductor would be a great job, inferring that it would be easy to steal some of the money. A couple of the guys were clearly very limited in their smarts, some were smart but had gone wrong. Each seemed to know both how good it would be to be back home, but also how dangerous to be back with the same type of friends in the old neighborhoods. Each would go there separate ways once they stepped off the train at Union Station. I wish I could say I thought each of them would remain freemen, but I don't think so, some will, some will not give themselves a chance.
As for the train trip, it went pretty good, we had to go into a siding to wait for 2 southbound passenger trains. It always seems a little weird to watch passing trains fly by in the other direction at 80mph so close to the window when your sitting still. A crop dusting plane was making passes, going up and doing a loop, then making another pass in one of the mammoth corn fields nearby. I was impressed by a blind man who had no trouble walking to the cafe car and back himself, just with his cane, when it is difficult to keep your balance for those with good eyes. As we got past Joliet and into Chicago's Southwest side, we had to wait at a diamond junction with another rail line supposedly for another train to pass for maybe 20 minutes. This seemed to frustrate the conductor. After we got going again he radioed the engineer and asked him if he saw anything. The engineer replied "Not unless that was a ghost train". There was another freight train waiting on the crossing track when we finally got through the junction, but we probably could have gone through much earlier if they were going to wait for us in the first place. After that we seemed to be behind something moving rather slow, so we lost a few more minutes of time, but being that it wasn't very far to the station we were soon off the train about lunch time..
I got another good deal on a hotel through hotwire and ended up at the Club Quarters at 111 West Adams. The hotel is maybe half-way between the station and Michigan avenue, so I just walked to the hotel. I checked in easily enough and decided to head up to the Lincoln Park area early since I'd never been there, to make sure I could find the theater where the play I had tickets for was being staged, and check out the neighborhood. I walked the short distance to State Street and found the nearest subway entrance for the "Red Line". They have escalators going up to the street at some stations, but always only stairs if you want to go down from what I can tell. If you want to go North you look for the trains that say "Howard", if you want to go south they say "95 Dan Ryan" While waiting for the next train north, there was a panhandler on the platform singing acapella while snapping his fingers. He had a really great voice and good taste in music singing "Under the Board Walk" "Mona Lisa", and the two different songs of the same name, Sam Cooke's "what a wonderful world"(don't know much about history...) and Louis Armstrong's well known version of What a wonderful world (I see trees of green....) Anyway, I gave him a dollar for that, maybe he makes good money. The subway makes a tremendous noise when it comes in, and you only have a second to hop on, so that put an end to the singing and I was headed to the North side. I was a little unclear from the map where exactly I should get off in relation to the theatre. I decided to get off at North Clybourn and look for it, the theater is at 1611 north Halsted ave. Having never been in this part of town before, when I came back out of the subway and came up above ground, I was once more directionally challenged and walked in the wrong direction for a while. Eventually I just decided to keep walking and walked all the way to Lake Michigan, past the Dwight L. Moody Church, and checked out a museum run by the Chicago Historical Society. They had one room facing Lincoln Park and the lake which was architecturally very interesting with a grand old chandelier and walls decorated with posters from the 1893 and 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair. They also had a great exhibit and career retrospective of a professional Chicago based photographer with all kinds of scenes of the cities poor and downtrodden as well as celebrities and the rich that had given the city it's history. Unfortunately, I think the rest of the museum was pretty weak. The big highlight was one of the very early ""L"" cars which said "south shore railroad", that you could walk through. That was cool, along with an early steam engine, but overall I think there are much better museums in Chicago. After walking across the actual Lincoln "park" and people playing frisbee football, I made it to a long sandy beach on Lake Michigan. Quite a few bikers rolling by on the trails at speed so I had to watch where I was going to avoid getting run over by the pellaton. There were maybe 50 volleyball nets setup on this warm summer day and a fair number of folks playing. I walked out on an old pier that sort of curves around into the Lake and back. Absolutely stunning view of the John Hancock section of downtown from here. Just far enough away so you can see everything, but close enough to make all the buildings appear magnificently big and imposing. I was amazed they let people walk on this old pier with no railings. It's not very far out, but if you fell off on the Lake Michigan side, I think a regular person would drown with the way the currents are.
My legs were getting pretty tired by this time from all the walking of the day before and this one, but I decided to suck it up and walk in roundabout way through the neighborhood, planning to eventually get back to the theater in time for the play at 8:00pm. So setting off I was planning to walk in a general direction toward the John Hancock building. The neighborhood on the way seemed the picture of "gentrification" A lot of the homes were gated, and looked pretty fancy. Probably charge quite a high-rent in this area. I walked past a little girl going up and down the sidewalk on something like a skateboard with handlebars. Can't remember what you call them. I think her grandpa was watching her, but he seemed to have run out of energy and was resting on a bench. Before catching up to the John Hancock, I hung a right and started walking back to the Steppenwolf. Once there I found out the theatre had a really big sign about 1 block or two from the subway station entrance on the same street. All I would have had to do was look left and use my own two eyes, when I walked out of the station the first time!! The intelligence of mankind at work, I'm sure I must have looked left, just must not have registered. While walking toward the theater I found the folks I had met in the diner on the train two days before, now with the daughter, taking their picture in front of the playbill poster in the theater window. I asked the daughter for a restaurant recommendation since she lived in town, and she mentioned an Italian restaurant nearby that was good but not terribly expensive. So after walking around a bit I tried that place out. I thought it was a very good restaurant, I had the chicken parmesan which came with an almost a full order of spaghetti on the side. The restaurant is just about underneath the brown line ""L"" , so you could look out the window and watch the trains go by overhead while you eat, which is kind of a neat thing to do when you don't live there.
Eating by myself goes rather quickly, so I still had a little bit of time to kill before the play. I walked the city streets some more and ran across kids who had just finished marking the sidewalk with chalk for hopscotch, all the way to 100. I heard their mother say that "hopscotch to 100 sounded like fun, but she was too tired for all of that and wanted to go lay down for awhile". Further on up the road, I heard some music coming from a local bar, and seeing it was free, walked in for a few minutes. I think maybe 5 people were there including the bar tender. There was a kid maybe 18 or so playing a keyboard and singing, with his parents at a table listening, two people playing pool, and one guy at the bar.I had heard him play a Billy Joel song while I was walking by, so since no one else was there I requested he play another Billy Joel song, "Summer Highland Falls" Mainly just to see if he could do it, since that's kind of a tough song. He obliged and did a pretty good job on the piano part. His singing was bland at the most and worse at times though. By this time I had to head back to the theatre to catch the play. The play or more specifically, the collection of play shorts was staged in the Steppenwolf's garage theater which is the bottom floor of a converted parking garage. The plays would be taking place at different points around the room, so they had setup a collection of benches around the floor which you could move if you wanted to for a better view between plays, or they would ask you to move, if you would be in the way for the next production. An instrumental band would play in the interlude between plays while things were setup. Of the 10 plays, 2 were probably really great, 6 decently good, and 2 unwatchably bad. The best two were an "Aliens" spoof, where you had these two "scientists" in the dark dressed up in these blinking spacesuit type outfits looking for lifeforms, which of course were members of the audience. The text of the play was corny versions of the fake science talk you get in sci-fi shows, or like CSI or doctor type shows. Which was pretty funny. The other best play was a send-up of the celebrity interview with a fake Hungarian superstar theater or film director speaking a made-up language and his lady translator speaking a stumbling English-German type of thing. Very funny. The worst one, which is bad in person cause you can't walk away was kind of a falsely pompous anti-rape diatribe, which stupidly in my opinion, to show that rape is bad, uses all kinds of awful language for no particular good effect.Complete waste of time. But of course the good thing is, they only last 10 minutes, so that was that. I was impressed enough to go back again the next night for "program A", since I saw "program B". The next night was a little more inconsistent, the best two being a mocumentary on the history of the people who owned a 1976 Dodge Dart, and a very funny spoof performed by a 13-14 year old kid on speech class where he does a speech on "AIDS". Funny and tasteful at the same time. Anyway, after the first night, I walked out and decided to take the Brown Line "L" back instead of the Red Line subway for something different. They got Federal money to do some construction on the Brown Line, and are reconstructing the stations, adding some more track and new elevated supports in places. In the mean time, some stations are closed or have temporary entrances. I got on at the Sedgewick station, which had new platforms, but a temporary entrance and found at this time of night, I had a whole car to myself for a few stations, before about six folks from Tulsa, Oklahoma got on. They had a hotel way out by O'Hare, so they were trying to figure out how to get back there by this line and the Blue line. I'm glad I was able to stay in the Loop this time. Looking out the window I was trying to figure out where the lightning was coming from, when I realized that it was just the sparks from the 3rd rail on the "L" train reflecting off the buildings.
Back to my hotel, I checked my email in the club room since they had free internet and went to bed. In the morning, I had a plan...or so I thought. Since the Frank Lloyd Wright Dana-Thomas house in Springfield was really cool, I thought I would tour his home and studio in Chicago. This was in the suburb of Oak Park. So in the morning, I got up and walked to Ogilvie Transportation Center on Madison street to ride a Metra train to Oak Park, the suburban commuter trains first stop on the weekend for the Union Pacific west line to Elburn. After buying a copy of the Chicago Tribune and eating a little breakfast at McDonald's, I went up to Track 3 and found my train. It was a quick trip to Oak Park and I enjoyed the walk down Oak Parks own Mainstreet and up and down the sidewalk toward Frank Lloyd Wright's home. It seems he designed most of the homes on the block, so the walk itself is kind of a tour in itself. There were many people walking by me with headsets on taking an audio tour of the block. Unfortunately, when I got to the actual home, there was a tour group in front of me. They had a big sign on the wall saying "next tour available", When I got in line it said 10:40, then quickly 11:10, then 12:00, then just before getting to the front of the line, 12:40pm Argh!!. I mentioned to one of the the guys organizing the line that I had been to the house in Springfield, and he said in many ways that was much more interesting. He was in his 70's and said he was just excited to have something to do with Frank Lloyd Wright. Anyway, I decided I didn't want to wait that long, since I wanted to make it to Wrigley Field to catch the Cubs Vs. the Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. I walked back to the Metra train station and heard some announcement that I didn't fully understand on the station speakers, so I just asked the station agent when the next one to downtown was, and he said "2 minutes, and use the west end since it's packed". So I ran up to the platform where a Union Pacific freight was sitting on the second track from the station. A new UP crew was boarding the locomotive, I'm not sure if this is a regular crew change point, or if the previous crew had "died on the law" but at least it wasn't blocking the nearest track. Our Metra Passenger train was soon visible in the distance. They weren't kidding when they said it was packed!!. There were maybe 8 of us who had to stand in the doorway,just in our car. But it was a quick trip downtown. One interesting thing about Chicago is that, being such a large city even long time residents will talk to each other about how to get to places that they are not familiar with. The advice to one Chicago resident on how to get to the Taste of Chicago once off the train was "follow the crowd towards the lake". On one "L' platform the discussion from a longtime Chicago resident and recently transplanted New Yorker consisted of trying to convince the New Yorker to take the bus now and then. But the New Yorker was determined to not ride the bus, even if it took longer. The Chicago resident explained that the city was thinking about building a "circle" line to connect the "L" and Metra at various points outside of downtown, but until then it was difficult to get from outlying areas to other outlying areas without first going downtown. That is the trouble with the transit system in Chicago right now, it works great going to and from downtown, or of course anywhere on a particular line once your there, and it does connect to the two airports, but it is difficult to get from one rail line to another without going to the downtown stations first or taking the bus or cab or driving in the outlying areas.
But for my purposes it all worked great, After arriving at the Ogilvie Transportation Center, the former Chicago Northwestern station once again, I walked down to state street, got back on the Red Line subway and headed North to the Addison stop next to Wrigley Field.
There had been tickets available before I went, but I didn't want to tie myself down if things didn't work out, so I didn't have a ticket in hand. So unfortunately I had to buy a ticket from a scalper for an price that will not be named. The face value was only 12 dollars and was actually a standing room only ticket technically. Having never seen Wrigley field before, and being a beautiful summer day, it was great to walk around the stadium, see the big sign, and walk in and watch batting practice from the left field foul pole area in this temple of the boys of summer. It seemed like all kinds of balls were hit here by the Brewers during batting practice, One kid even caught a ball on the fly a couple of rows from me. You really did have to pay attention to avoid getting hit. After batting practice I walked up and stood behind the stands in between 3rd base and the foul pole. Even though the game was sold out, I managed to find a seat no one was sitting in by the time the game started, although many other people with standing room tickets did have to actually stand.
The Cubs were on a winning streak and the morning Tribune had a big story on the Cubs pulling out a last minute victory in the previous days game. So hopes for the local fans were high...for about 5 seconds. The Brewers scored I think something like 4 runs in the top of the first, and it just kept getting worse. The Cubs fans behind me were two guys who liked to play intramural baseball or on town teams or something so knew quite a lot about the game. After the first inning they said, "Get 'em tomorrow boys", And they noticed when the Cubs pulled their starting fielders signifying they were giving up. But their conclusion was, "At least were at the ballpark", and "you know I was just thinking how much I love Wrigley field......etc." So perhaps it's not just about winning, but that would be nice. They still don't have a big screen at Wrigley, so you don't get any replays except for these tiny household size T.V.s hanging around. But it's a small enough place that it's pretty easy to see the game from any seat, and of course the Ivy on the outfield walls is cool. I'm not sure about the bleachers set up on the buildings across the street though. They looked a long ways away from the game in person, but they were also packed with people on this day.
Since I had decided to head back to the Steppenwolf Theatre to catch the second night of the sketchbook plays, which started at 5:30pm I had to head out a little early. But the game was over by any measure by then, with the Brewers ahead 11 to 4 or something. The Red Line subway actually comes out of the ground and is back to being a elevated line by the Addison station stop, so I ran up the stairs and waited for the next train which said 95/Dan Ryan heading South. I'm guessing it's a standard city joke, but one passenger quipped as we waited, 'let's get the 'el outta here". I probably cut the time a little short on this plan, so when we got back to North Clybourn, I had to run out of the station and down to the main Steppenwolf theatre to pick up my Will Call ticket, then back to the garage theatre for the plays. I was feeling accomplished for actually making it before the start at about 5:28.
The plays were as mentioned before, and after that I had decided before my trip to go to a music club called "Martyrs", which I had heard of because some local Twin Cities bands play there when they are touring in Chicago. The closest "L' station to the club was Irving park on the brown line from what I could tell. I eventually got there, after missing an announcement about station construction or misunderstanding something or another, I missed getting off at the right station the first time through Irving Park and had to get off at the next stop, and then take one train going back the other direction, but hey I got there in time. It's hard to judge from just one night and a couple of bands, but for anyone familiar with the Twin Cities music scene, I would say as a first impression that Martyrs is somewhere above Bunkers, but below the Cabooze. The bands I saw were a couple of bands on tour from New York, who were playing original songs, but seemed to really be trying to channel David Bowie, and maybe a combination of glam or punk, Unfortunately, they channeled the outfits, and fashion, and acted like rock stars, but didn't really have any good songs to play in my opinion, and they weren't Dance bands either, which would have been a saving grace. So after giving a listen to the last bands first couple of songs, I decided to head back to the hotel a little early. I heard someone talking about moving to Detroit for a new start. It seems to be a universal feeling that if worldly things are not going well where you are, to go somewhere else. "Anywhere but here", as the saying goes. Anyway, I was still feeling a little restless, so I just took the brown line a couple of stops back and walked around the "old town" area. There were quite a few disco-techs open and packed bars and such, but that not being my thing, I just walked around the streets and decided to take the Brown Line back to the Loop. Unfortunately, when I got to the sedgewick station, it was closed for the night, on this Holiday weekend anyway, so I had to walk back to the Red Line Subway, which operates 24 hours a day I believe. So with a quick Subway ride, a short walk down the deserted and barren downtown Chicago streets at nighttime and up the elevator to my room at the Club Quarters. My only complaint about the Club Quarters hotel was that they made you use your room "key" or card as it were to operate the elevator! Pain in the watussi, that was. Everybody had difficulty getting that to work. One time I let another guy activate it, and I thought I could ride along up to my floor which was 7. But by the time he got out on a different floor, and I was trying to activate it again with my card so I could push "7", somebody else had pushed the button in the lobby, so I had to ride it back down again and start over. No big deal, but I don't know why they make you hassle with that.
My train left for the Twin Cities the next day, Sunday at 2:15pm , so I didn't have a lot planned for the morning, but wanted to see what I could get in. Fortunately for me, the hotel let me leave my suitcase with them after I checked out for only 1 dollar, so I didn't have to go to Union station and use those pricey temporary storage lockers they have. It also saved me a lot of time, and let me do a couple of things instead of just one. My first plan was to walk from the hotel to the Shedd Aquarium. This takes you down the signature Chicago scene of Michigan Avenue past Grant Park and Lake Michigan. I met quite a few runners on the walk with numbers on their chest, perhaps there was some race or another this morning. Crossing Michigan Avenue, someone said "Good Morning", which everyone ignored, but he said it again and informed us he was the "happy face" police. His joke for the day was. "do you know why you should bring two pairs of socks the next time you play golf? Because you might get a hole in one". So after that it was down Michigan avenue, with it's beautiful buildings and through the park towards the aquarium., Between Michigan Ave and the Lake, the bridges you walk(or drive over) take you over the Metra Electric and South Shore rail road lines heading to and from Randolph street, now called Millennium park station which is underground nearby. The trains are visible here, and these trains are the only ones that use overhead electric catenary for power in Chicago I believe. There is a small Metra train station near Roosevelt Road which judging from exterior appearances, has got to be close to the most sorry looking actively used train station I've ever seen. The trains all run underneath it and it looks like you must use stairs to reach it, but anyway it looks like the building last saw remodeling and painting in about 1918, maybe. That said, it was still being used, with a in-bound South Shore train from Indiana stopping at the station , and the conductor leaning out a vestibule waiting to give the "highball", while I walked on the overpass I did see a sign saying "Roosevelt Road" station project underway,....Mayor Daley". So maybe that will be fixed up soon.
I'd never been to the aquarium, so I thought it would cool to check out. They have a good collection and it is pretty easy to walk through. Probably my favorite thing was the Sea turtles and the stingrays and of course the sharks which always remind me of Air Force Fighter Jets. They have a good collection of different species of fish. They also had a Komono Dragon and lots of lizards that they were promoting at this time.
I didn't know if I would have the time, but I decided to see if I could get through the Chicago Institute Arts before I'd have to leave since I really enjoyed my previous visit the last time I was there. During the walk up the street towards the art institute, a guy was painted and dressed up like a statue standing on a pedestal, calling himself the "copper cowboy". He would stand like a statue and then move after people would walk by to surprise the tourists. Since I had only a couple of hours before the train home, I decided to just go through the paintings at the art institute, and especially spend some time with my favorite ones. I think last time I was there I missed the American paintings and exhibits and also the statues downstairs, for some reason, so I checked them out, and soon after cruising through the cool Thorne miniature rooms exhibit, it was time to head back to the hotel to pickup my suitcase and head to Union Station. I got back to the Great Hall of the station about 1:30pm. I had been thinking of eating at one more nice Chicago restaurant for lunch, but with the time running short, I just had to get some fast food in the food court at the station. While I ate, I was glad I was not the mother at the next table who was dealing with maybe a 13 year old daughter who seemed to think she was the most miserable person in the world at this point in time. They had come from New York, and had missed a close connection for a Hiawatha train to Milwaukee, and were going to have to wait about 2 hours for the next one. Apparently she had not been to Union Station before, and had thought the connecting train would be right there on the next track or something, she didn't know it would be "like Grand Central" This didn't seem to bother the mother, of course many people have much, much worse delays, both on trains, planes or driving, but to the daughter it was terrible,and an awful start to their vacation. But the mothers solution was "we are on vacation, and we are having a good time!, because I say so!!""
I finished my sandwich and walked to the North Concourse boarding gates to find the Empire Builder train home was already boarding, so I got in line. I've never had it happen before, but that day they were making everybody show them their drivers license, perhaps because of increased security. The coach attendant was also assigning seats in the St. Paul coach, since it was about sold out and she wanted to know exactly what seats would be empty for the people who were boarding at the stations en-route. I had boarded towards the end of the line, so I had ended up in the second to last row on the last car. Luckily for me, I think I was about the only person in the car who had an open seat next to them for the whole trip, so that was nice. Going with the flow, our train was able to get out of Chicago easily and got to Milwaukee on time. There were quite a few parents and kids in the car, but they were all pretty well behaved. I managed to get a few minutes of looking out the rear-window in our last car, which is really the best view on the train, but another guy with his young son in his arms spent most of the time there. They really should build some new cars with the observation area on the back like there used to be. The lounge car was exceptionally packed for some reason. I think the conductor said we had about 421 people on board after Milwaukee, but before Columbus. Many Amish folks as usual. In talking to one Amish fellow,he said that this trip they were going all the way to Portland but were looking for some place in Montana they could get to by train and stay a few days on a future trip. So I suggested the Isaak Walton Inn in Essex Montana near Glacier National Park that I've heard really good things about. Hopefully someday, I'll get a chance to stay there myself for a day or two. The trip across Wisconsin continued well, and there was a Union Pacific freight train stopped waiting for us to go by at Tunnel city so we could go through the tunnel first. One of the kids said "what happened to the lights!" as we went through. I have to say I was impressed with those two kids mother who were sitting across the aisle from me. Quite the Christian lady. Giving off quite a bit of light in everything she said and did.
The sun was setting over the Mississippi River valley as we pulled north out of La Crosse, with the long days this time of year, the sun stayed up till almost Red Wing, which was cool. I made a diner reservation for 8:30pm and was seated next to a father and son from London England. It was the son's first trip to the states, so he was excited to be seeing the country. They had been to New York and seen Grand Central station/terminal and the Met, Metropolitan Museum of art, and other sites, and now were traveling to Seattle and finally Vancouver, B.C. where they had some family. I made casual mention that we were looking at Hwy 61 out the window, when the son's face lit up. It seems he was a big Bob Dylan fan, and that made him think of Bob's song Hwy 61 Revisited. So of course we talked about music for a while, and I encouraged him to learn to play an instrument since he already had good taste in music.
Pulling into Downtown St. Paul, Harriet Island was lit up with the Taste of Minnesota. You could see a Ferris wheel and other rides from our view across the River. I noticed as we went by the grand old St. Paul Union Depot, that the old concourse had some lights on inside. Hopefully in not too many years this train will stop there. Of course after that, we were just a few minutes out of Midway station, and the end of another fun trip. We pulled into the station exactly on-time at 10:30pm and a Minnesota Commercial locomotive was idling on the next track waiting to pull our extra St. Paul coach from the train before it continued west. My car was still in the same place with my long-term parking permit in the Window, and nicely enough at this time of night, there is very little traffic on the way home and the freeway works how it's supposed to, so in an hour and 20 minutes or so I was home.
Posts: 38 | Registered: Dec 2006
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That is a great report. I thought it was interesting and really held my attention. Thanks!!
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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Perhaps the lengthiest report I have ever seen! Thanks for telling us about the 'non-train' things you did. Ideas for future rail trips are a wonderful thing.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Thanks for the informative trip report. I expect to be going to Springfield myself this fall when we go to Chicago.
Posts: 2642 | From: upstate New York | Registered: Mar 2004
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Good report, Music fan! I didn't read the parts covering all your sightseeing activities, but I enjoyed the train part of your report!! Your comments about the prisoners going home to Chicago were interesting......
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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