To Chicagoland July 2004

I just finished up my travelouge from my trip out to Chicagoland from July 19 to July 22. I took Regional service form Boston to New York where I connected to the Three Rivers for Chicago. In Chicago I took the Ann Rutledge out to Joliet and METRA back into the city. Back at Union Station I met up with Sean (B-51) to ride the Hiawatha service to Milwaukee. Going home I took the Cardinal to New York, from Chicago, and connected with the ex. Federal back to Boston.

You can read about my trip here and view the photographs here.

If you find any errors or corrections in my travelgue please feel free to let me know. Otherwise enjoy.

Very informative trip report, I enjoyed reading it. Sorry about the cell phone, that was really nice of amtrak to give you those phone cards.

Amfleet, sounds like a great trip! Glad you got to meet up with Sean again.My printer is not working so I will read the report more thoroughly later, just glanced over it.

You mentioned Ann Rutledge. That name does not get all the"publicity" and "name recognition" that names like CZ, Chief, Broadway Limited etc do, but rest assured, it is indeed one of the grand old railroad names just as much as any of the above. I think the Ann Rutledge began service about 1938.

I recall this is about two or so weeks earlier than the time you traveled last year, as you and I were traveling about the same time, and my power outage, etc.

I enjoyed it too! Keep on railroading

Great report, really wierd about the cell phone though. From the sounds of it, you were near the phone the whole time while it was plugged in charging so that rules out theft Id imagine, and I really cant thing of a place where it would fall into or wherever on a Horizon coach and be totally gone like that. very wierd indeed! Ya never know though, you may get it back. When we left a camera on the train, we called them up when the train was in Worcester, they found the camera, put it in a box and sent it back to us!!

Well since it's been over a month since Jon lost the phone I'd say it's gone for good. It's actually kind of funny, when we got on 335 he commented on how much he liked my new phone, and wished he could get a new one. Well he got his wish, just not in the fashion he'd hoped for. :lol:

You can't ride Amtrak and expect the best. My, and I'm sure other frequent Amtrak travelers, motto is "Expect the worst, but hope for the best."

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Aloha

Mahalo for the trip report. Hope mine is as good. Your quote above concerns me but I know it's true. Every trip I have done has had good employee's, Why so much trouble? You would think that if the train personal are representative that upper management would do better. Guess they are too week to fight for their employees and the success of Amtrak

I guess what I mean by that quote is don't expect to be riding in 5-star style. So if you expect something really bad, even the worst trip will turn out to be positive.