This past week I spent at a training for work in Milwaukee with a colleague. At my job the assumption is that we’d drive to the training but my boss was willing to let us take the train when I showed him that with the Indiana and Chicago area Toll Road Tolls and and parking we’d break even on price. My colleague was also game not to deal with the Chicago area traffic. The extra travel time was just an hour to 2 (not accounting for what would have probably been terrible traffic) by train, Google estimating the drive at 3.5 hours.
I didn’t really take any pictures of the journey (and didn’t take detailed notes), just pictures of the impressively rebuilt Milwaukee Station but might as well summarize this comparison for a trip that was almost equal Amtrak, equal Commuter Rail for distance travel, must time wise much longer on the slow Interurban South Shore Line.
Monday evening up: We get a ride (I actually drove, and with a colleague in the car to drive the company car back to the office) to the Airport South Shore Line Station for the 4:45pm ET South Shore Line Train. We might have taken a Transpo bus but the timing is terrible, we’d need to leave the office at 3:50 and wait 28 minutes at the airport. The headway is half an hour. We deal with getting a poorly itemized receipt for our round-trip tickets ($13.25 each way) from the TVM with our company credit card. We end up saving our ticket stubs to make sure the state board of accounts is satisfied. The 4:45pm train has begun many trips for me on Friday afternoons and I’m used to it being fairly crowded. On a Monday night it’s nearly empty, and much shorter with just 3 cars instead of 5 to 6, as we make all of the stops into Chicago. Unlike on a Friday night when I’ve had to double up, there just a handful of passengers even when we leave Hegewisch for the run up Metra Electric (where the track always feels smoother).
We get off at Van Buren Street at 6:05 pm, the train running 5 minutes early not really facing any delays. We have a two hour layover in Chicago and start walking the mile crosstown. At this point I’ve examined our Amtrak ticket for the Unreserved Hiawatha and notice that our return date is for Friday so I make a note to stop by the ticket office (it’s a rare Amtrak ticket not booked by me). We stop at Giordano’s Pizza we ask how long for a deep-dish pie, we get the reply of 45 minutes and decide we should have enough time. We order a pizza to share and I decided to walk to Union Station while we wait to ask at the ticket office. They tell me I don’t need to change the ticket, Hiawatha trains are unreserved and the ticket will be accepted on Thursday instead of Friday. I’m slightly surprised, somewhere I thought the travel date was the first day of validity and then the ticket would be valid for a year, I guess I’m wrong. I also add my AGR number for the measly points on the $25 ticket (half the number of points, just 5o base instead of the old 100, No more points runs). We return and the pizza arrives just as I’m getting nervous.
We head over to the station for Hiawatha Train #341 scheduled to leave at 8:05 (really 8:00 to me because of the 5 minute boarding gates closing rule). Boarding is a bit confusing at 7:50. Were in the boarding gate area towards the front of the line (no ones being all that pushy), there is a second priority line outside the boarding area that I believe is just for 10 trip and monthly pass holders. It’s unclear to me if anyone is enforcing it this second line. An Amtrak policeman announces “Now Boarding!” before an agent runs up and says 10 trip and monthly pass holders first, holding us back, it’s not long before we board and walk out towards the front of the train where I think it will be less crowded.
The Amtrak Hiawatha is basically just a commuter train. The legroom of the Horizon Cars is much appreciated for the quick and dark 85 minute, 86 mile trip up to Milwaukee. After two and half hours on the South Shore Line, Amtrak’s generous legroom is night and day. The evening train is quite empty on a Monday night. I end up doing some website work for the first time in awhile (update soon) with an outlet, generous legroom and feeling too tired to read after the time change.
As we arrive in Milwaukee–(6 photos) at 9:25, and I’m blown away by the lights of the new station, grabbing my camera.
We use the nice blue overpass structure that fits within the roof (I’m quite impressed by it) to get over to Track 0 and the exit before walking 10 minutes to our hotel.
Tuesday Photo Walk: On Tuesday as soon as our training’s over around 5:00 with evening fast approaching (something I’m less used to happening at 6:00pm in late October now that I live in the extreme western side of the Eastern Time Zone, right now it’s barely twilight when I go to work at 8:00am) I head out to get some photos of the station from public areas–(22 photos). I start by walking by the station and then head up (there’s barely a staircase) to get some photos from the cable-stained overpass of North 6th Street that crosses over the exposed extreme ends of the overpass.
I quickly get that photo set. I then want to finally get photos of a Hiawatha Train going over its first grade crossing of 2nd Street basically leaving the station, going through the post office building that surrounds it’s former mail car platform. It’s a spot I remember thinking about on my first Hiawatha trip 5 years ago. Hiawatha Train #340 is due to leave at 5:45 (there no arrivals in the short time frame I have before it gets dark). I get to the crossing just in time for some photos:
Thursday Afternoon, coming back: Our training finishes before Noon, so we grab a leisurely lunch and head to the station at 12:40 for the 1:00pm Hiawatha Train #336. We get to the station and I show our ticket (well a print out) again to the ticket office to be sure (no one is in line), they confirm that yes that ticket will be accepted. I enjoy the advertising of the new Saturday late night 11:00pm-ish trains in each direction (it’s replaced the 6:00am early morning train in each direction) with ads saying “Take your bride to dinner and a show without the hotel room.” The schedule change was a pilot just over the summer and will now be made permanent. I wish we had a later South Shore Line train back to South Bend, the last leaves at 9:15pm CT (arriving at 12:40am due to the time change). I finally took the Lake Shore Limited home at 9:30pm a few weeks ago and that will become the new late night routine.
Boarding in Milwaukee–(9 Photos) is a line up also except strangely two lines are formed. We stand in what becomes the much shorter line, with one line forming back into the terminal from the cordoned off area. I’m out with my camera as the line of people heads out to the overpass.
The final call is at 12:55 (Milwaukee now having the gates close 5 minutes prior to departure rule, I wish Amtrak would become Metro-North at Grand Central and publish this time, not the actual departure time (at Grand Central always 1 minutes after to give passengers time to board.
It’s another nice pleasant ride on a relatively empty train down to Chicago with the usual ticket check between Sturetvant and Glenview when most riders our on-board, no seat checks. In Chicago, where we arrive four minutes early 2:25 the crew is a bit annoying, were sitting in the second car from the front of the train, the first car is open for passengers, but no crew member comes to open the doors in that vestibule forcing us to double-back as we leave the station. I spend the ride getting my new Milwaukee Station photos processed to update the website.
The next train home to South Bend is the 3:57 evening Express Train, I’ve contacted a friend who works across from Millennium Park and has flexibility so we grab a quick coffee after he shows me his impressive 12 floor office (in a coworking space) with nice views of Lake Michigan. Chatting he walks me to Millennium Station where I reach the platform to the conductors saying East Chicago, Dune Park and South Bend only. The train is extremely long. I get on a car towards the rear and the doors soon close, knowing I’ll have to walk up for the short 3 car platform in South Bend. We make the usual stops to pick up passengers at Van Buren Street, 11 Street-Museum Campus before the final Metra Stop at 57th Street for almost no one.
When the conductor comes (most seats are taken in my car but no one has to double-up) the conductor warns that all of us going to South Bend will have to move up after Dune Park. The train is extra long because it’s transporting 150 school children home to Dune Park and were going to have to drop some cars in Michigan City. I text my lady who’s picking me up that I’m going to be a little late because of this. I spend the first part of the trip trying to do other website stuff on my computer (I’m also sitting at the one outlet in the car) but the tightness of the seats on the South Shore Line makes this hard. I won’t try again and will normally just read a book.
In Dune Park the stop takes a good five minutes and I see 3 school buses followed by loads of school children. The conductor at this point is ushering all of us to walk 3 cars towards the front of the train which I do, finding plenty of seats, and eventually my colleague who’s sitting at the very front (the most crowded car) where she was directed to board when she got on in Chicago).
At Carroll Avenue-Michigan City where the yard is I see two yard men in florescent vests waiting on the platform, we pull up slightly into the yard, I hear the break pressure dropping. We’re on our way within 3 minutes. The South Shore Line really has mastered dropping cars in Michigan City, something many late night runs that deadhead back due as part of the schedule, trains will become just 1 or 2 cars when they leave.
It’s then the past trip through the woods (past a lake, we skip Hudson Lake even, not the usual flag stop) before the slow ride along Bendix Avenue, down the marry-go-round curving around into the airport station at 7:05, 10 minutes late, the express train not breaking that scheduled less than 2 hours mark this evening.