The day begins in a hotel room I’m sharing with a cousin by airport in Moline who is flying back to New York at 4:00am. I sleep in until after 8:00 only having 50 miles of riding. I then enjoy a huge included breakfast, pack up my sattlebags and am out of the hotel at 9:30 riding on US-6most out of the airport area to the town of Colona. Here I pick up the highlight of the day, the Hennepin Canal Trailway. This I take to the tiny town Annawan before heading south in a headwind 10 miles down to Kewanee. The wind made me wish I had decided to do the 20 extra miles to Princeton but there is a reason I want to revisit Kewanee. It has built a new depot over the past year.
I arrive at 3:30 to an ultra modern air conditioned building with clean restrooms open from 5am to 9pm unstaffed except when a woman from the tourism office is there in her small office. The modern station is on the same dilapidated platforms that have been left unchanged with the old brick depot gone. She has stopped by the office when I arrive and wants a picture of me at my bike which I oblige, she is really excited to have a tourist from New York. I change out of my bike shorts into more comfortable cloathing in the station’s nice, clean restroom and then she walks across the street to a bar and arranges for me to leave my bike and luggage there. I don’t complain and walk down to Dairy Queen for my daily ice cream before photographing #3 screaming through town and having dinner at the Station House restaurant which isn’t as good as I remember it from last year.
I return to the odd modern station on unmoderized platforms, the opposite of so many other Amtrak stations with modern platforms at AmShacks. The train pulls in again on the opposite track in Kewanee just before the grade crossing. The P42 stops waiting for us to cross. After we do it crosses. It is its standard consist of four Horizon cars: 3 coaches and the cafe/business. Attached to the back is some private varnish, two dome cars that I don’t get a very good look at as I make two trips, one for my sattlebags and one for my bike into the middle car. There is no gap beyond the seats like I expected to park my bike so I have to jam it up along the oversized and empty luggage rack at the end of the car (bigger than those on Amfleets). I use my bungee cord to attach my bike to the overhead luggage rack just for good measure. The car is crowded and I just get the last set of double seats. Are official departure time is 7:29, two minutes late after the train arrived 1 minute early.
The Illinois Zephyr passes us as we go through the fields getting to Princeton at 7:57 on the opposite track from the depot with the passengers waiting there but a door is opened over the grade crossing for one straggler on the wrong side of the tracks. At 8:17 we arrive in Mendota which has a railway museum and old cars outside. At 8:47, fully in the dark we pull into Plano and then the conductor announces are estimated arrival times for the last 3, largely discharge stops. 9:50 to Chicago baring any delays.
At 9:11 we pull into Naperville as I see a janitor cleaning the depot. It’s a quick trip down the BNSF track to La Grange Road at 9:28, 8 minutes late, but recovery time means we pull into Chicago at 9:45, 13 minutes early.
I step off last from my carwith my bike and as I put it together on the platform a large number of grey hared folk scream out of the dome cars without any luggage. There must have been a Carl Sandburg day trip. As I walk up by our locomotive there is another surprise on the next track, A BNSF Business train is parked with a nice lighted drumhead logo on the next track with a bunch of stainless steal streamliner cars. I get a few photos before seeing an Amtrak cop on a bike, I guess patrolling the rail yard. I then ride my bike with the local hostel to check in for two nights. I would
have done just one but have a coupon so the second night is free.