Thunder Road
Service Attendant
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2011
- Messages
- 144
Edit: Since I put so many pictures in, I needed to split my report into multiple posts. Sorry. :/
Ok well Chrome just crashed and deleted my entire tripreport, so here I go starting over from the beginning. Therefore, it'll be a pretty quick report,since I'm angry now and I don't feel like retyping everything I had.
I go to college in Valparaiso, IN, about an hour and a halffrom Chicago. In the past I've drivenout and flown home on Southwest from Midway. But this time I decided to take my first long train ride (well longerthan the Regional, anyway). I booked amulti-city trip so that I could book 30 but then pick 66 for the jaunt up toTrenton, leaving me about 8 hours to spend with my sister in Washington whogoes to college there.
So I left campus on the V Line bus. The V Line runs shortbuses all around thetown of Valparaiso and has one route that only runs on the weekends up to theSouth Shore Line station at Dune Park, which is what I was on.
We arrived there at 1:00, and I boarded the SSL (well, the "other"SSL) about 10 minutes later, but not after grabbing a few pictures for youguys.
Looking down the platform at Dune Park:
To Chicago:
The SSL arrives:
The SSL runs trainsets of single-level and bi-levelcars. On the weekends they only runsingle-level trains, because (or so I've heard) they don't like to or can't runthe bi-levels through Michigan City where they do some street running, and allweekend trains make all stops, so they stick with single-levels.
The bi-levels are pretty neat though, not like NJTbi-levels, because they don't actually have a locomotive, so you just see threetall cars rolling down the tracks. Theyalso don't have a solid second floor. Rather, there are two aisles with one seat each on either side of thecar, and then you can look down to the lower level. There's also a luggage rack that you canreach from both levels. Kind-of neat.
This is NOT my photo, but it shows what a SSL bi-level looks like:
Anyway…. I took the SSL to Van Buren Street.
Van Buren Street:
Then began my trek across the Loop to Union Station,stopping on the Chicago River bridge for a shot of the city and the platformlevel of the station. There was atrainset of Superliners down there, but it wasn't mine.
The Chicago River:
I see you hiding down there!
I checked my suitcase and got my ticket, then went searchingfor something to eat. Since it was after3:00 already, AU's favorite Lou Mitchell's was closed, so I settled for PizzaHut Express in the food court. It was theaverage crappiness of Pizza Hut Express.
Then I wandered around and took a bunch of pictures of UnionStation. I won't lengthen the thread byposting them all here, but you can check them out by clicking on the album atthe end.
Okay fine, here's one: (There are plenty more of the Great Hall in my album.)
They started letting us on at about 5:40 and I was settled inmy seat in time to watch 50 pull out. They sorted us into Washington people (the forward coach) andeverything-but-Washington (the back coach). We only had 2 coaches, but all the seats I saw were full.
I didn't know I could ask the conductor for a window oraisle seat, so I ended up getting an aisle, but my seatmate, Willy, let me havethe window so I could set up the GPS. Willy was from Fremont, CA and had taken the Capitol Corridor and the CZbefore this, and was connecting in WAS to Miami on the Meteor. All in coach! Makes my trip kind-of feel insignificant…
I caught the CL speeding several times throughout the night:
Since it was dark as we pulled out I didn't take anypictures, except for one of a decent snow squall at Alliance.
We stayed almost on time the whole run. They cut the smoke stop at Cleveland down bya few minutes so that we could be exactly on time.
I usually don't go to bed until 2 or 2:30 central, so Icouldn't really force myself to bed. Ifinally went back to my seat around 2:15 eastern (just after leaving Alliance)and found Willy sleeping across both our seats, so I had to wake him up. He already had the seat set-up for sleeping,so I had to climb in awkwardly and couldn't get comfortable.
Alliance, OH during a flizzard:
Ok well Chrome just crashed and deleted my entire tripreport, so here I go starting over from the beginning. Therefore, it'll be a pretty quick report,since I'm angry now and I don't feel like retyping everything I had.
I go to college in Valparaiso, IN, about an hour and a halffrom Chicago. In the past I've drivenout and flown home on Southwest from Midway. But this time I decided to take my first long train ride (well longerthan the Regional, anyway). I booked amulti-city trip so that I could book 30 but then pick 66 for the jaunt up toTrenton, leaving me about 8 hours to spend with my sister in Washington whogoes to college there.
So I left campus on the V Line bus. The V Line runs shortbuses all around thetown of Valparaiso and has one route that only runs on the weekends up to theSouth Shore Line station at Dune Park, which is what I was on.
We arrived there at 1:00, and I boarded the SSL (well, the "other"SSL) about 10 minutes later, but not after grabbing a few pictures for youguys.
Looking down the platform at Dune Park:
To Chicago:
The SSL arrives:
The SSL runs trainsets of single-level and bi-levelcars. On the weekends they only runsingle-level trains, because (or so I've heard) they don't like to or can't runthe bi-levels through Michigan City where they do some street running, and allweekend trains make all stops, so they stick with single-levels.
The bi-levels are pretty neat though, not like NJTbi-levels, because they don't actually have a locomotive, so you just see threetall cars rolling down the tracks. Theyalso don't have a solid second floor. Rather, there are two aisles with one seat each on either side of thecar, and then you can look down to the lower level. There's also a luggage rack that you canreach from both levels. Kind-of neat.
This is NOT my photo, but it shows what a SSL bi-level looks like:
Anyway…. I took the SSL to Van Buren Street.
Van Buren Street:
Then began my trek across the Loop to Union Station,stopping on the Chicago River bridge for a shot of the city and the platformlevel of the station. There was atrainset of Superliners down there, but it wasn't mine.
The Chicago River:
I see you hiding down there!
I checked my suitcase and got my ticket, then went searchingfor something to eat. Since it was after3:00 already, AU's favorite Lou Mitchell's was closed, so I settled for PizzaHut Express in the food court. It was theaverage crappiness of Pizza Hut Express.
Then I wandered around and took a bunch of pictures of UnionStation. I won't lengthen the thread byposting them all here, but you can check them out by clicking on the album atthe end.
Okay fine, here's one: (There are plenty more of the Great Hall in my album.)
They started letting us on at about 5:40 and I was settled inmy seat in time to watch 50 pull out. They sorted us into Washington people (the forward coach) andeverything-but-Washington (the back coach). We only had 2 coaches, but all the seats I saw were full.
I didn't know I could ask the conductor for a window oraisle seat, so I ended up getting an aisle, but my seatmate, Willy, let me havethe window so I could set up the GPS. Willy was from Fremont, CA and had taken the Capitol Corridor and the CZbefore this, and was connecting in WAS to Miami on the Meteor. All in coach! Makes my trip kind-of feel insignificant…
I caught the CL speeding several times throughout the night:
Since it was dark as we pulled out I didn't take anypictures, except for one of a decent snow squall at Alliance.
We stayed almost on time the whole run. They cut the smoke stop at Cleveland down bya few minutes so that we could be exactly on time.
I usually don't go to bed until 2 or 2:30 central, so Icouldn't really force myself to bed. Ifinally went back to my seat around 2:15 eastern (just after leaving Alliance)and found Willy sleeping across both our seats, so I had to wake him up. He already had the seat set-up for sleeping,so I had to climb in awkwardly and couldn't get comfortable.
Alliance, OH during a flizzard:
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