A Whirlwind Through the Windy City

Greetings from southeastern Wisconsin, where the local time is currently 4:32 PM CT on Tuesday, July 31.  I am writing this from my Roomette on the Empire Builder, Amtrak’s Chicago to Seattle/Portland service.  This post will cover the time period from the end of the previous entry up until my arrival at Chicago Union Station to board today’s train.  And as an added bonus, there are visuals!

My day on Monday the 30th began with my taking the METRA Union Pacific-North Line from Highland Park to the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago.  This line is unusual in that it is operated “left handed”, with a setup like a British road (if you are traveling inbound, a train traveling outbound passes you on the right if you are facing forward, whereas you would expect it to be on the left).  From there, my goal for the rest of the day was to finish my tour of the Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated and subway lines, so that I could add the CTA to my list of completely ridden subways (the ones I’ve done thus far are Washington, DC, New York City, Miami, Toronto, San Francisco, Glasgow, and Haifa, Israel).  In bulletpoint format, the itinerary and trains taken were as follows:

• Pink Line (Car #3021) from Washington/Wells to Kedzie
• Pink Line (Car #2222) from Kedzie to 54/Cermak
• Pink Line (Car #2222) from 54/Cermak to Polk
• Pink Line (Car #3005) from Polk to Ashland
• Green Line (Car #2513 from Ashland to Harlem/Lake
  • Once at Harlem/Lake, I walked over the adjacent METRA station where I photographed an outbound Union Pacific-West Line METRA train, and a CSX freight heading towards Chicago
• Green Line (Car #2515) from Harlem/Lake to Clinton
  • After getting off this train, I walked to a food court under Ogilvie TC where I purchased and ate lunch
• Blue Line (Car #3026) from Washington to Forest Park
  • Upon my arrival at Forest Park, I completed my system tour.  I have been to every CTA station, although due to the fact that Blue Line service from the Dearborn Subway to 54/Cermak is limited to every 30 minutes during rush hour only since the Pink Line’s inception, I have not been on the track connection that those rush hour Blue Line trains use.

From here, I began to work my way towards Wrigley Field, where I was meeting my friend, Joe, to watch that night’s game between the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies.  This was accomplished using the following:

• Blue Line (Car #3026) from Forest Park to Clark/Lake
• Brown Line (Car #3361) from Clark/Lake to Merchandise Mart
• Purple Line (Car #2577) from Merchandise Mart to Chicago/Franklin
• Brown Line (Car number not recorded) from Chicago/Franklin to Fullerton
• Red Line (Car #2707) from Fullerton to Addison
  • It appears that the Purple Line Express has had the largest service cuts as a result of the Three-Track project at Fullerton and Belmont stations.  That said, they should have Red Line trains stop at Wellington (and Diversey when it reopens) when the Brown Line is in operation so as to straight rail all the service through that zone.

I now will take a moment to write about the CTA’s poor state of repair.  While the CTA is working to eliminate the slow zones that are scattered around its system, the agency faces a budget crisis and cannot maintain current levels of service and maintain its aging infrastructure.  Chicago’s rapid transit system is among the oldest in the nation, and as with most things, needs more attention as it gets older.  Riding the CTA this visit was not as fun (from a railfanning perspective) as in the past, because of the numerous slow zones.  It is good to see that projects such as the Brown Line rehab are going on, but it seems that more funding and work will be needed to bring the CTA back up to the standard it should be at.  Additionally, other systems and the governments that fund them can learn from the CTA’s experiences over the past years.  For public transit to function and be maintained properly, agencies need the money to carry out not only day-to-day operations but maintenance work that will ensure a good system for years to come.

The ballgame was quite enjoyable, but like at the White Sox-Blue Jays game on Sunday, since I was not a fan of either team, I got to just sit back, watch the game, and take in everything.  Wrigley Field is one of my favorite ballparks.  The crowd is great, the setting is unique, and the park has charm.  It also presents a great challenge to any scorekeeper like myself, since there are no posted lineups and the announcements on the public address system are usually not able to be heard clearly.  Interestingly, I had already seen both teams play this year already.  I saw the Cubs play against the Washington Nationals in Washington on July 2, and I saw the Phillies play against the St. Louis Cardinals in Philadelphia on July 14.  Coincidentally, the starting pitchers for Chicago and Philadelphia on those dates also started last night’s game.  Finally, the only other time I was at a game at Wrigley Field in July of 2003, the Cubs were playing the Phillies.  The Phillies won the game 4-1, but the Cubs fans stayed and cheered their team on until the end. 

After the game, we walked back to the “L”, although in an attempt to get around crowds, we walked much further than intended and probably saved no time as a result of our endeavor.  For the trip back to where Joe had parked, we took these trains:

• Red Line (Car #2617) from Wilson to Howard
• Purple Line (Car #2577) from Howard to Linden
  • This train came to a very sudden stop just after passing through the yards at Howard, and it was soon announced that the train’s brakes would not release, and we had to wait for a supervisor to come and fix the problem while continuing.

Once we got back to the car, we drove back to Deerfield, and after deciding we would not be able to see Becky, a mutual friend of ours that night, I went back to my relatives, repacked my bags for my trip on the Empire Builder, and went to sleep.

The next morning, I left my relatives and took the METRA train from Highland Park into Chicago.  After leaving my luggage in the Metropolitan Lounge at Union Station, I walked over to the new Millennium Park.  This park has public fountains in which people can get their feet wet, or they can stand under one of the tall cascades of water and be totally immersed.  There are also gardens and an outdoor stage with a lawn seating area and speakers that bring the sound of a performance out to the lawn area.  Millennium Park is an urban oasis right in the middle of Chicago’s bustling downtown area, was well planned, and the public seems to be enjoying its use.

After that, it was back to Union Station to grab a bite and await the boarding of the Empire Builder for the trip out to Portland.  More on that to come…

Amtrak Has Yet to Live Up to its Reputation

I begin where I left off last night, going downstairs to take a shower while on board a moving train. This might go without saying, but it isn’t the typical showering experience, unless being compared to what one might go through at a sleepaway camp. Luckily, we made the Connellsville, PA station stop while I was in the shower, which made things easier. The shower stall is about 6 feet high, so the top of my head is against the ceiling. The showerhead is one of those detachable ones that can be held in your hand, and the result is one gets something slightly better than a sponge bath. There is also a shower curtain with snaps between the shower itself and a small changing area, which allows one to make a possibly futile effort to keep the water in the shower and the changing area dry.

I turned off the lights in my room and went to sleep at 10:06 PM ET. I slept soundly from about 11 until our station stop in Toledo, Ohio, at about 5:10 AM ET, went back to sleep, and woke up for good at 6:47 AM ET during the Elkhart, Indiana station stop. We actually arrived here early and had to wait for the departure time to leave! Shortly thereafter, I went to the dining car for breakfast, where I was seated with a man traveling to Seattle, Vancouver, and possibly some points in British Columbia. He wasn’t exactly sure of his itinerary, but his train from Fort Lauderdale to Washington was delayed, so he was bussed with some other passengers to meet the train in Pittsburgh. After breakfast, I went to the lounge car with the Sunday New York Times, and remained there until we were about to arrive in Chicago, at which point I tidied up my belongings. We arrived at Chicago’s Union Station at 8:40 AM CT, almost a full hour early!

I proceeded to the Metropolitan Lounge to leave my things for the day, having put the items I needed for the day’s activities in a separate bag while on the train. I had a ticket to the 1:05 PM CT White Sox-Blue Jays game, so I decided to do some railfanning before that. I walked to the nearest L station at Quincy and Adams, and rode the following trains:

• Brown Line (Car #3361) from Quincy to State/Lake
• Brown Line (Car #3382) from State/Lake to Fullerton
  • The work they are doing at Belmont and Fullerton stations is phenomenal, I can’t wait to see the finish products.
• Red Line (Car #2647) from Fullerton to Lake
• Green Line (Car #2480) from State/Lake to 63rd/Cottage Grove
• Green Line (Car #2437) from 63rd/Cottage Grove to Garfield
• Green Line (Car #2474) from Garfield to 63rd/Ashland
• Green Line (Car #2494) from 63rd/Ashland to Roosevelt
  • The connecting passageway from the Green/Orange station to the Red Station is very well done in my opinion
• Red Line (Car #2709) from Roosevelt to Sox/35th

Then, it was on to the ballgame. I think the new Comiskey is nice. It isn’t a retro ballpark, but it is not a cookie cutter stadium either. There did not appear to be any obstructed views, but the scoreboards were hard to see from many vantages in the park, and there was music playing at almost every possible moment. There were also endless promotions and advertisements being made over the PA. One nice thing about the music is that it was much softer and more subdued than at other parks, but the quantity did not improve my opinion of it despite the quality. The game itself was quite good. It only took 2.5 hours to play the game. The Blue Jays won, 4-1, and their two pitchers only faced 28 batters over the course of the entire game (one over the minimum), allowing two hits (including a home run to Jermaine Dye) and no walks.

After the ballgame was over, I hopped on the Red Line (Car #2409) from 35th up to Monroe, planning to walk over to Union Station. However, a 130 bus came up (D40LF 1195) and I took that over to Union Station, to help ensure that I would catch the 4:35 METRA Fox Lake train to Deerfield. It is from the home of my relatives in Deerfield (where the local time is 7:22 PM CT on Sunday, June 29) that I am currently writing this, and it will be posted as soon as I can get the wireless to work right, or once I transfer it to a different computer to post it.

Tomorrow, I intend to finish my tour of the CTA’s train lines (more on my opinion of how they have deteriorated since my last visit in a future post) and will revisit Wrigley Field. And if you are wondering how Amtrak didn’t live up to its expectations since I never directly dealt with that issue in this post, let’s just hope that the Empire Builder performs as well as the Capitol Limited did.