J
John Bredin
Guest
On Saturday the 8th, I and a friend took a day-trip from Chicago to Milwaukee on the Hiawatha.
We took #331 north. I got on at Glenview on-time, having already heard from my friend by cell phone that the train left Chicago on-time. There was no food cart service, and my friend told me that there was an announcement that the cart was not used on weekend trains. After traveling at full speed from Glenview to at least Rondout junction, we crept for several minutes through the northern part of Lake County (north of Rondout but south of the big power plant at the State line). However, they announced pretty much right away that the delay was due to signal problems, we never actually stopped, and we were back up to full speed after a few minutes. Assuming my counting of the seconds between mile-posts was correct, we then traveled at about 70mph. We arrived about 10 minutes late at Sturtevant, and were still late by only 10 minutes or less at Milwaukee Airport and finally at Milwaukee.
They did an EXCELLENT job remodeling the Milwaukee station. Once you come inside from the platform area -- which is unchanged -- one would think it was a wholly new building! Dark and cramped has been utterly banished by bright and airy, gray concrete by clean white walls and glass. B) Plenty of seating, no concessionaire but plenty of vending machines, separate manned counters for Amtrak and Greyhound. The canopy over the Greyhound bus bays was an interesting echo of Milwaukee's new ship-like Art Museum. And there is a somewhat-hidden gem: an interesting painting of the old station (the Victorian-era one, not the concrete-bunker 1960s building, which this theoretically still is) over by the elevators up to the office level. My only nitpicks: no ATM machine, and no rack of tourist pamphlets, Milwaukee County Bus schedules, etc..
I found it very odd that I could find a Milwaukee tourist map on a rack at Chicago Union Station but NOT at the Milwaukee station!
After seeing various sights in Milwaukee, we took #340 back to Chicago. Though I boarded the northbound train in Glenview, I rode southbound all the way to CUS. We left on-time, and were on-time at every stop up to and including CUS. There was an inordinately large crowd at Sturtevant, with a particularly large number of children. When only a few people boarded our train, I and my friend were puzzled. We rattled our brains trying to think of why so many people would be taking #339 north from Sturtevant, which was due into Sturtevant just a few minutes after us. Then, somewhere south of the State line but north of Gurnee, we had the answer: the Canadian Pacific Railway's Holiday Train passed us thundering northward, all lit up like Broadway. The crowd at Sturtevant was not waiting to board a train but to see one!
All in all, an interesting trip.
We took #331 north. I got on at Glenview on-time, having already heard from my friend by cell phone that the train left Chicago on-time. There was no food cart service, and my friend told me that there was an announcement that the cart was not used on weekend trains. After traveling at full speed from Glenview to at least Rondout junction, we crept for several minutes through the northern part of Lake County (north of Rondout but south of the big power plant at the State line). However, they announced pretty much right away that the delay was due to signal problems, we never actually stopped, and we were back up to full speed after a few minutes. Assuming my counting of the seconds between mile-posts was correct, we then traveled at about 70mph. We arrived about 10 minutes late at Sturtevant, and were still late by only 10 minutes or less at Milwaukee Airport and finally at Milwaukee.
They did an EXCELLENT job remodeling the Milwaukee station. Once you come inside from the platform area -- which is unchanged -- one would think it was a wholly new building! Dark and cramped has been utterly banished by bright and airy, gray concrete by clean white walls and glass. B) Plenty of seating, no concessionaire but plenty of vending machines, separate manned counters for Amtrak and Greyhound. The canopy over the Greyhound bus bays was an interesting echo of Milwaukee's new ship-like Art Museum. And there is a somewhat-hidden gem: an interesting painting of the old station (the Victorian-era one, not the concrete-bunker 1960s building, which this theoretically still is) over by the elevators up to the office level. My only nitpicks: no ATM machine, and no rack of tourist pamphlets, Milwaukee County Bus schedules, etc..
I found it very odd that I could find a Milwaukee tourist map on a rack at Chicago Union Station but NOT at the Milwaukee station! After seeing various sights in Milwaukee, we took #340 back to Chicago. Though I boarded the northbound train in Glenview, I rode southbound all the way to CUS. We left on-time, and were on-time at every stop up to and including CUS. There was an inordinately large crowd at Sturtevant, with a particularly large number of children. When only a few people boarded our train, I and my friend were puzzled. We rattled our brains trying to think of why so many people would be taking #339 north from Sturtevant, which was due into Sturtevant just a few minutes after us. Then, somewhere south of the State line but north of Gurnee, we had the answer: the Canadian Pacific Railway's Holiday Train passed us thundering northward, all lit up like Broadway.
The crowd at Sturtevant was not waiting to board a train but to see one!All in all, an interesting trip.
