Hello from Milwaukee where I am visiting more friends! The final stop of my now over a month long journey before I take the Dome Car Cardinal back to New York this Saturday night.
I arrived on the 5:08pm Hiawatha #339 yesterday on by far Amtrak’s shortest corridor service up from Union Station going only 86 miles that strangely offers checked baggage (only at its terminuses) that I took full advantage of this morning by checking my bag at Union Station when I also bought my ticket in the morning. The Hiawatha is one of just two trains (the other is the Keystone between Philly and Harrisburg only) outside of California that are still unreserved, the price always the same $23, Keystone is $25. The ride was quiet, particularly because I had chosen to sit in the Quiet Car and felt like a commuter train with tons of people in business suits and few with luggage returning from days at work in Chicago back to Wisconsin. There were lots using ten ride/unlimited ride passes it seemed on the train. Unlike a peak hour train on the NEC though this one was crowded but not so much that everyone had to double-up, I had two seats to myself for the entire ride. The rolling stock was 4 Horizon Coaches and just one Amfleet between a standard P42 and a Cabbage a former F40 now un-powered with a baggage compartment, instead of just Amfleets for the train, shorter than a typical Regional train (but not Empire Service trains and the like). The train also got stuck behind a Metra train and was running ten minutes late through Glenview and Sturtevant but we gained some of that time and arrived into Downtown Milwaukee only 4 minutes late.
The rest of my time in Chicago was not spent finishing the L has I intended, I got distracted wanting stations on Metra which I got quite a few of within the city limits using the slow trick of taking buses everywhere. I also got some more outside of the city limits Some highlights were yesterday, just before my train (and after my 24 hour pass had expired), I rode the blue line out to O’Hare and did a station-to-station of their 5 stop people mover system before getting off at the one stop for parking and taking the shuttle bus out to the O’Hare Transfer Station. This is a stop on the quite infrequent weekdays only Metra North Central Service Line, its newest route. The trip once the train arrives is definitely faster than the blue line but a real hassle dealing with both a shuttle bus and the ATS system. The only travelers that could really find the line useful are those using the International Terminal 5, since they have to transfer to the ATS system anyway just to get to the CTA. I also managed to get every stop on the Milwaukee District West Line as far out as River Grove, 8 stops, the Milwaukee District North Line up to Forest Glen, 5 stops, the UP Northwest Line to Jefferson Park, 4 stops and the achievement I’m quite proud of myself for is the UP North Line up to Indian Hill, 9 stops. I did not stay with my cousins on the South Side this time so the next trip will see me getting plenty of Metra Electric stations.