Prologue: Our trip began, not with a train but with a plane from Seattle to Chicago. This entire trip was planned as my 65th birthday celebration, which ended up needing some tweaking, including taking a flight to Chicago as a kickoff rather than the train. No matter—we arrived in Chicago with the better part of a day to spare, which we spent by taking the architectural boat tour of Chicago. Even if you think you don’t care about architecture, I highly recommend it as a great way to get an introduction to the city, by guides who are knowledgeable and care about their narrations. Also, if it is blazingly hot, being on the water at least gives the illusion of a bit of coolness. (Though, learn from my experience and sunscreen up, even if you did so a few hours earlier—the reflected sun from the river is a double-whammy! Trust me on this one…)
Since we knew we wouldn’t be getting a meal on the Southwest Chief till dinner, we figured a hearty breakfast was called for, so we ate at Lou Mitchell’s for a late breakfast. It’s about five minutes’ walk from Union Station, and is everything that a 1950’s diner ought to be, minus the gruff waitresses. (At least, ours was delightful.) For convenience purposes, we opted to stay overnight at the Club Quarters, which is steps away from a Blue Line connection directly from the airport, and an easy walk to Union Station as well. After doing the boat tour, we returned to Club Quarters to pick up our luggage and decided to have a little nibble there in lieu of lunch. My British husband was amazed and delighted to discover that at the hotel pub/restaurant, they have Fuller’s London Pride on draft! So, if you are a fan of English beer, this is yet a third advantage of staying at Club Quarters.
Having re-hydrated with English beer and sharing a snack, it was time to get to Union Station, which according to the map is a straight shot down about two or three blocks from the Club Quarters. (Pro tip—if you have wheeled luggage, ignore the first entrance to Union Station you come to, and follow the signs instead for the disabled entrance to Union Station, or you’ll find yourself wrestling down stairs with your luggage!) Chicago’s Union Station is huge—it occupies several blocks of downtown Chicago real estate. Although it is still undergoing restoration of the Great Hall, it is pretty darned impressive nevertheless. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, so once we were settled into the Metropolitan Lounge, my husband asked the front desk staffer if there was a place within the station where he could buy Amtrak souvenirs. She sent him on an extensive wild goose chase, because it turns out that the shop is still definitely closed. So we can confirm that as of three weeks ago—no Amtrak shop in Chicago. Just in case you run into that Amtrak staffer.
Day One: Clambering aboard a Superliner with my suitcase is my least favorite part of any LD train—I’m expert at packing my small carry-on sized suitcase so tightly that it has nearly the density and weight of a black hole. And, having fractured my fibula only three weeks earlier, the climb up to the bedroom wasn’t something I was looking forward to. So imagine my delight when our SCA—Ryan—spontaneously offered to take our cases up to our room. (He did the same thing when we de-trained in LA.) More on Ryan, prince among SCAs, later. (And yes, I did write an email to Amtrak praising him…)
We left Chicago on time, and settled into our bedroom. Ryan gave us the tour of the room, told us that, at least for the first leg of the trip, he’d be in roomette A if we needed anything, and ended by wishing us a great trip and asking if we needed any ice. We didn’t, so we sat back and watched the railyard recede into the distance. Here I have to make a confession—I had assumed that the first day out from Chicago wouldn’t be of much interest, so I loaded a couple of new books onto my Kindle in case there wasn’t much to see out the window. But, I stand corrected. The first miles out of Chicago are marked by surprise treats like the lovely stone-arched station at La Grange, and the brick topped tower at Western Springs. By our first stop, Naperville, I hadn’t even had to think about firing up my Kindle. From the train you can glimpse a bit of historic Naperville downtown, including an old theater and part of the riverside promenade along the DuPage River. Unfortunately, the station there is a functional but characterless glass-fronted station from the 1970’s I would guess. Just after the stop, the train passes over the river and into farm country.
This is another confession—I assumed that watching Illinois farmland would be like watching paint dry. (To be fair, on past cross country drives, I have failed to find much of interest.) But the farmland is attractively lush and green, with enough barns, farmhouses, silos, and corn cribs to inspire a few verses of Old Macdonald Had a Farm if one were so inclined. (We demurred…) Towns along the tracks were sparse—often marked by a watertower with the town’s name, like Buda, apparently named for the Buda side of Budapest in Hungary. This is ironic, since the Buda part of Budapest is the hilly side, and Buda, Illinois is flat as a pancake. Though, probably calling it Pest would have been a mistake, since the jokes would tend to write themselves…
One thing we noticed about little Illinois train stations—they almost all feature a steam locomotive, or some old railroad cars, or both, alongside the station. Mendota, for example, has a very well preserved locomotive that I would have loved to inspect a bit, except Mendota is not a ‘fresh air’ stop, and we were warned not to get off the train there. Too bad… More Illinois farmland, mostly corn and soybeans. When the corn fields run perpendicular to the tracks, you get a green and gold tiger-stripe effect. By the time we reached Galesburg, we were running out of daylight and running out of Illinois. While we were having dinner in the dining car, Old Fort Madison in Iowa flashed by, followed by its warehouse-like station. The light was too low by then to see, much less photograph, anything of Iowa.
Our SCA, Ryan, popped in after dinner to inquire whether we needed anything and when we’d like our beds set up. We were happy to sit up a while and have a nightcap before turning in, so we suggested he see to others and call on us last in his rounds. Some time later he returned with a request; it seems that another couple onboard was trying to fill in a quiz and got stumped on the question, name the four states whose capitals start with the same letter as the state. Since we were out of wifi range, he wondered if we could help supply the answer—they had Indiana, Oklahoma, and Hawaii. Yes, we could help—it’s Delaware! With that, we vacated the room for a few moments while Ryan got the beds dealt with and told the quizzing couple the answer.
Since we knew we wouldn’t be getting a meal on the Southwest Chief till dinner, we figured a hearty breakfast was called for, so we ate at Lou Mitchell’s for a late breakfast. It’s about five minutes’ walk from Union Station, and is everything that a 1950’s diner ought to be, minus the gruff waitresses. (At least, ours was delightful.) For convenience purposes, we opted to stay overnight at the Club Quarters, which is steps away from a Blue Line connection directly from the airport, and an easy walk to Union Station as well. After doing the boat tour, we returned to Club Quarters to pick up our luggage and decided to have a little nibble there in lieu of lunch. My British husband was amazed and delighted to discover that at the hotel pub/restaurant, they have Fuller’s London Pride on draft! So, if you are a fan of English beer, this is yet a third advantage of staying at Club Quarters.
Having re-hydrated with English beer and sharing a snack, it was time to get to Union Station, which according to the map is a straight shot down about two or three blocks from the Club Quarters. (Pro tip—if you have wheeled luggage, ignore the first entrance to Union Station you come to, and follow the signs instead for the disabled entrance to Union Station, or you’ll find yourself wrestling down stairs with your luggage!) Chicago’s Union Station is huge—it occupies several blocks of downtown Chicago real estate. Although it is still undergoing restoration of the Great Hall, it is pretty darned impressive nevertheless. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, so once we were settled into the Metropolitan Lounge, my husband asked the front desk staffer if there was a place within the station where he could buy Amtrak souvenirs. She sent him on an extensive wild goose chase, because it turns out that the shop is still definitely closed. So we can confirm that as of three weeks ago—no Amtrak shop in Chicago. Just in case you run into that Amtrak staffer.
Day One: Clambering aboard a Superliner with my suitcase is my least favorite part of any LD train—I’m expert at packing my small carry-on sized suitcase so tightly that it has nearly the density and weight of a black hole. And, having fractured my fibula only three weeks earlier, the climb up to the bedroom wasn’t something I was looking forward to. So imagine my delight when our SCA—Ryan—spontaneously offered to take our cases up to our room. (He did the same thing when we de-trained in LA.) More on Ryan, prince among SCAs, later. (And yes, I did write an email to Amtrak praising him…)
We left Chicago on time, and settled into our bedroom. Ryan gave us the tour of the room, told us that, at least for the first leg of the trip, he’d be in roomette A if we needed anything, and ended by wishing us a great trip and asking if we needed any ice. We didn’t, so we sat back and watched the railyard recede into the distance. Here I have to make a confession—I had assumed that the first day out from Chicago wouldn’t be of much interest, so I loaded a couple of new books onto my Kindle in case there wasn’t much to see out the window. But, I stand corrected. The first miles out of Chicago are marked by surprise treats like the lovely stone-arched station at La Grange, and the brick topped tower at Western Springs. By our first stop, Naperville, I hadn’t even had to think about firing up my Kindle. From the train you can glimpse a bit of historic Naperville downtown, including an old theater and part of the riverside promenade along the DuPage River. Unfortunately, the station there is a functional but characterless glass-fronted station from the 1970’s I would guess. Just after the stop, the train passes over the river and into farm country.
This is another confession—I assumed that watching Illinois farmland would be like watching paint dry. (To be fair, on past cross country drives, I have failed to find much of interest.) But the farmland is attractively lush and green, with enough barns, farmhouses, silos, and corn cribs to inspire a few verses of Old Macdonald Had a Farm if one were so inclined. (We demurred…) Towns along the tracks were sparse—often marked by a watertower with the town’s name, like Buda, apparently named for the Buda side of Budapest in Hungary. This is ironic, since the Buda part of Budapest is the hilly side, and Buda, Illinois is flat as a pancake. Though, probably calling it Pest would have been a mistake, since the jokes would tend to write themselves…
One thing we noticed about little Illinois train stations—they almost all feature a steam locomotive, or some old railroad cars, or both, alongside the station. Mendota, for example, has a very well preserved locomotive that I would have loved to inspect a bit, except Mendota is not a ‘fresh air’ stop, and we were warned not to get off the train there. Too bad… More Illinois farmland, mostly corn and soybeans. When the corn fields run perpendicular to the tracks, you get a green and gold tiger-stripe effect. By the time we reached Galesburg, we were running out of daylight and running out of Illinois. While we were having dinner in the dining car, Old Fort Madison in Iowa flashed by, followed by its warehouse-like station. The light was too low by then to see, much less photograph, anything of Iowa.
Our SCA, Ryan, popped in after dinner to inquire whether we needed anything and when we’d like our beds set up. We were happy to sit up a while and have a nightcap before turning in, so we suggested he see to others and call on us last in his rounds. Some time later he returned with a request; it seems that another couple onboard was trying to fill in a quiz and got stumped on the question, name the four states whose capitals start with the same letter as the state. Since we were out of wifi range, he wondered if we could help supply the answer—they had Indiana, Oklahoma, and Hawaii. Yes, we could help—it’s Delaware! With that, we vacated the room for a few moments while Ryan got the beds dealt with and told the quizzing couple the answer.
