May 14, 2006
Cheesborger! No Pepsi. Coke.
Here starts our trip to Chicago and the West Coast. We didn't really drive to Chicago. We went to Naperville and road a train to Chicago. Ate at Billy Goats Tavern and had "Cheesborgers." Click below to read the rest of the story.
My 2005 Amtrak trip was great. Kirk, my nephew finished the school year on Wednesday and we headed out around 1:30AM Thursday morning for Chicagoland. We had to pick up Sonny before we left town. Sonny wasn’t in favor of leaving quite that early but I knew it was about a seven hour drive to Naperville and then a little more time to grab a breakfast, stop for gas, and maybe run into some construction delays. Our train would depart Chicago at 2:15PM whether we were there or not. I knew it would take some time at Naperville to unload baggage, park, and get back to the station. The METRA trains from Naperville to Chicago run hourly. I figured about 2 hours in Chicago, maybe 3 if everything went like clockwork.
We ran into a few minor delays on the way to Naperville. A 24 hour McDonalds wouldn’t serve us breakfast until after 5:00AM, it was about 4:30AM when we got there. We drove on up the road and found something else. A gas station we pulled into was lit up like it was open but it wasn’t. Things like that kill 2 or 3 minutes each but enough of them could become significant. Since we were making good time we took a little extra time to stretch about halfway between Indianapolis and Naperville. About 40 miles south of Gary Indiana we took some back roads that took us around the Chicago area and kept us away for any rush hour traffic. They were all good roads and except for having to slow down as we went through a few towns, speed limits were 55MPH and we made pretty good time. We arrived in Naperville and it seemed like I had over estimated our buffer time. We were plenty early. We found the station… I sort of knew where it was anyway. We unloaded all of our baggage. There were a few cabs there waiting for the next train coming from Chicago. We got a phone number from one of them then drove to the “Community Christian Church” where we would be parking the car for a week. We talked to one of the staff members for a few minutes and told them that we had made arrangements with Pastor Tim. Then we called the cab. They told us it would be about 45 minutes before we would be picked up. Glad I had the extra time built into the schedule. As it turned out, we got picked up in about 10 minutes. We arrived at the station and had about 45 minutes to wait for the next METRA train into Chicago. I had allowed for about 50 minutes at Naperville, figuring that we could have up to 1 hour wait if we had just missed a train. The trip to Chicago took an hour also. My two to three hour buffer in Chicago was working out about right. We arrived in the Chicago terminal around 11:00AM. We found the baggage lockers and proceeded to stuff 8 bags into a locker that should have held 5, maybe 6 bags. With a little pushing and shoving, the door actually did close and lock.
“Cheesborger! Cheesborger! Cheesborger!” Sound like something from a SNL skit? Take a trip to Billy Goats Tavern in Chicago. That’s where we had lunch. It’s about 5 blocks from the station. It’s also the place that inspired that skit on SNL (Saturday Night Live, incase you didn’t know.) Take a look at the menu before you get in line to order.
“What’ du-yuh want?”
“I’ll have the special.”
“Cheesborger!” he yells. “You want fries?”
Don’t get in line without knowing what you want. He’ll ask you once, maybe prod you once more, and if you’re not quick enough he’ll ask the next guy in line and he may not come back to you. For about $5.00 you can get a pretty good burger, fries, and a Coke. No Pepsi!
We strolled around for about a half hour after we ate lunch and then headed back towards the station. Along the way we stopped at a Subway and picked up a sub for the road.
We got back to the station about an hour before our scheduled departure time. Opened the “exploding locker” and got our bags out and walked to the ticket kiosk to print out our tickets. Amtrak has a nice system. You put the same card in the machine that you used to purchase the tickets and it spits them out for you. That’s how it’s supposed to work. For some reason, it didn’t want to work for me this time. I had used them previously but they were not going to work this time. So, I got in line at the ticket counter. I was expecting to find that there was some problem with the tickets and this was going to take awhile to get ironed out and we were going to be pushing it to get on the train. I don’t know what was wrong but the agent took the info from my card, typed in a few things and out comes 12 tickets that she wanted me to sigh. She did ask to see my Veterans Advantage card but said that there was nothing asking her to verify it. She didn’t know why the kiosk wouldn’t work. She was extremely nice, friendly, and helpful. I forgot her name but if I knew it I think I would have sent a letter to Amtrak telling them how nice she was.
With tickets in hand we head toward the gate where we were to board the train. Since there were four of us traveling together I wanted to be near the front of the line to make sure we got four seats together. I didn’t know how crowded the train would be. Sonny had to make a “personal” stop. The rest of us went ahead and got in line. After about 10 minutes we began to wonder about Sonny. He had not returned and I had his ticket. My brother went looking for him and came back empty handed. A few minutes later, Sonny came from the back of the line to join us again. Boarding started a few minutes later than the scheduled time. Amtrak had another train to get out first and it was a few minutes late. As soon as the other train departed, Amtrak started boarding passenger on the Empire Builder. Our coach was two coaches from the end of the train. We boarded, stowed our luggage downstairs, went upstairs, found some seats, stowed our overhead luggage, sat down and about five minutes later we were moving. I looked at my watch and it was 2:15 and 5 seconds.
Before we leave Chicago, let me talk about the station for a minute. The Chicago Union Terminal is an old building build in 1925. Countless millions, or maybe I should say “billions” have come through the terminal. In the 1940’s over 300 trains and 100,000 passengers used the terminal daily. When you enter the main hall from the Canal Street entrance on the east, the steps to the waiting room are worn to the point that there is a very noticeable slope on the tread (the part you step on.) It’s about like any other old municipal terminal, full of echos, hard surfaces, one hundred foot plus ceilings in the main hall, and old wooden seats. It’s clean and to the casual visitor, it seems well maintained. Most visitors to the terminal are METRA riders since all METRA trains terminate at that terminal. METRA has some new facilities but Amtrak uses part of the old terminal. They have installed modern ticket counters, lighting, and equipment, however, they kept the charm of a 1920’s era station. The waiting room has been remodeled, however, it’s probably due for another update. It was crowded and a bit warm the day we were there.
Once you leave the waiting room you enter the working part of the station. This is the part where the real business of the railroad takes place. Steel meets steel down here. This part of the station is dirty. It’s underground. The sun never shines in here and rain never makes it in either except when it finds a leaky path from the surface. The bowels of the station have seen years and years of coal burning steam locomotives and for the last 50 years, diesel locomotives. They create a lot of dirt and years of it have collected in some areas. I’m sure the area gets cleaned from time to time but just don’t brush a white shirtsleeve against anything as you walk to your train. When the station was built, passengers expected to get dirty when they took the train. They were riding in coaches that were not air-conditioned and suet and cinders’ coming in the windows was the norm.
We were under way. If we forgot anything, it was too late now. After about a minute or so we saw sunlight. Time to call the wife just to let her know that we were on our way.
Posted by john at May 14, 2006 09:55 PM