• Tag Archives Amtrak

  • Quite a Yarn

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                Waning Back to School Moon

    October 5th, 2010 Union Station, Chicago, Room 4, Car 0730

    Last night I found a Korean restaurant just off State Street in Lafayette. I ordered the Duk Man Guk, a spicy soup with egg, pot stickers, seasoned beef and sliced rice balls. After a quick glance over to t he young woman across the way who looked Korean and had ordered the same thing, I used the long spoon. The owner brought me another dish of kimchee after I finished off the first one fast. She seemed pleased I liked it. There were only Asian students eating there, just off the Purdue campus.

    The Hilton Garden Inn had nowhere near the character of the Western Hotel at Camp Chesterfield, but it did have an internet connection. I finished some work I had to stop when I moved into the 19th century over the weekend.

    This morning it was up at 6:30 am, shower, pack and walk across the pedestrian bridge over the Wabash to the Amtrak section just at its end. A lovely slice of Back to School moon hung in the dark blue sky while we huddled together in the morning coolness waiting for the train to come around the bend. A young man of 2 or 3 years screamed and hollered. He did not want to go on the train. His mom said he thought it was too big.

    It wasn’t.

    Three hours later we rolled into Union Station. Backwards. Don’t know why.2010-10-05_0323

    Wandered around Chicago for a while, just looking, admiring building facades, enjoying the skyscrapers, blending in with the busy and the distracted. I decided to head down to Printer’s Row, the South Loop, hoping I could pick up a jazz related gift for 88.5 listening wife. There are jazz joints down there. No joy. All closed up at 10:45.

    Having missed breakfast I went into an Italian restaurant and had an early lunch.

    After lunch I discovered a fancy yarn shop and found a good gift for Kate. She’s a textiles and yarn artist, so I bought her some merino wool yarn. It’s a beautiful multi-colored pattern, 1800 feet worth. Seems like a lot to me.

    Back to the Metropolitan Lounge in Union Station and now on the train.  Heading north.


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  • RailBird

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                       Waning Back to School Moon

    45th HS Reunion

    Empire Builder September 28 10:30 am St. Paul

    A freight lost a knuckle (?) in North Dakota and couldn’t vacate the track for the Empire Builder coming from Seattle. Result, a 3 + hour delay. We just started rolling right now, 10:33, 3 hours and 3 minutes after our scheduled 7:30 departure. Doesn’t matter. I’m on vacation. The first since a year ago February. Visiting family has a different category for me: visiting family.

    Just passed over University Avenue. Trains take you thru the alleyways and industrial districts in America, interesting to me to see how commerce’s back office works. Just saw an unusual sight, a man riding a bicycle with a load of long lumber on a cart behind him. Shades of Beijing.

    Went over to Bonnie’s on University for breakfast. A great old timey breakfast joint. Specials hand lettered on signs all over the place. Truckers and construction workers, a few hunters eating.

    Each trip is its own adventure, the unexpected and the mundane often of equal interest.

    I asked for a riverside roomette so I can watch the Mississippi below Hastsings. Just occurred to me that I also chose the sunny side, though the delay may take care of that.

    The passenger car, #2830, creaks a bit and rolls gently side to side as we pass Irvine Park where I used to live and the Science Museum. Now we’re under the odd bird-cliff nest like structure of the now vacated Ramsey County jail. Strange that the criminals got such great views.

    Big barges on the Mississippi draw oohs and ahhs from passengers. We’re pulling out of St. Paul,headed south along the big river, Father of Waters.

    4:44 PM Outside of Milwaukee. The train slowed to a crawl about 50-100 miles ago. The tracks were underwater; we passed over a rail-road bridge with the Wisconsin River lapping over the ties and onto the track.

    My roomette is #10, at the rear of passenger car #2830./ Right behind me is a window looking out over the tracks as we pull away from them. My fellow passengers flocked back here to view the track and its soggy condition.

    Since we had three hours delay, the lunch would be the last meal though we will still be well out of Chicago around supper time. The dining car got mobbed so our attendant offered to go get my lunch. I took him up on it since the dining car is as far as you can get from me within heading into the baggage cars. He brought back macaroni and cheese, salad, vanilla ice cream and bottled water. A white meal. Perfect for Wisconsin.

    Later on I had him make up the bed and I took a nap, rocked to sleep by the rhythm of the train. In case you can’t tell, I’m sold on train travel. It proceeds at a civilized pace, allows for watching changes in topography and culture, all with a degree of personal service and civility long absent in plane travel.

    The train has slowed as we pull into Milwaukee, a northern fall evening complete with bright sun coming in at a low angle, leaves that have just begun to change and folks with long sleeved t-shirts and light jackets.

    There has been plenty of time to just stare out the window and think. As we rolled along beside the Mississippi, the clouds were gray and low, in another month they would be snow clouds. Today they were the hand of autumn, ushering in the lowering skies, the introverted season has begun.

    Tomorrow is Michaelmas, the feast day of the warrior angel, Michael. It carries a sobriquet, the springtime of the soul. And so it always seems to me. Fall and winter are the time when my inner life takes on renewed energy.

    Fall and winter have their analogues in the last years of life, years I have just entered. I realized that my affection for the fall and winter, the time when introspection and spirituality become dominant, augurs well for my own aging. I am in tune with this time of life, just as Carl Jung predicted I would be, all those many years ago when I first learned of his division of life into two halves, the extroverted competence and achievement phase between, say 20 and 55, and the introverted, inner life oriented second phase, 55 to death.

    We passed the Miller Breweries and now sit at the train station in downtown Milwaukee. From here we turn south after a mostly west to east journey from St. Paul, though one with a southerly tilt. The well-heeled northern suburbs of Chicago will offer up their limestone train stations, brick retail centers and neatly coiffed houses before we head into the hurly burly of Chicago’s near north industrial and warehouse districts.

    It’s a damned good thing I have a night or two in Chicago. My connection to Lafayette leaves Union Station at 5:15. The time it is right now. I would have missed it for sure.


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  • Lounge Lizards

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane           Waning Dyan Moon

    Metropolitan Lounge, Chicago, Illinois

    Once again in this pleasant wood lined lounge with comfortable chairs and internet access.  Here they check baggage until your train boards, have treats and drinks.  They also guide us out to the train by a back route before the boarding of coach passengers.  It is a civilized addition to train travel.  It is superior to the Acela Lounge in D.C. on the criteria of friendliness, user services and comfort.

    Kate and I ate lunch up in the food court.  I had my necessary Italian beef  with hot peppers and extra juice.  In Indiana I also had three pieces of sugar cream pie, an indulgence only available commercially in the south.  It’s on my list of things I can cook, but I don’t make it often.

    After lunch we went out on the plaza and watched traffic on the Chicago River, one of the least appealing water ways in the US.  Straight across the river from Union Station the Sears Tower rises 104 stories.  Once the tallest building in the world it has not held the record for quite some time.

    Our train boards in the next 45 minutes or so.  Kate seems to be a convinced rail traveler now, so we might end up seeing more of the US and Canada by train.


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  • Went Down the Sunday Throat

    Posted on by Charles 3 Comments

    Beltane Waning Dyan Moon

    Amtrak Cardinal north of Renessalear, Indiana 8 am

    Kate and I woke up at 4:30 this morning, showered and finished packing. We headed around the corner to the train station. As we got there at 5:15 or so, the station master had just begun to announce boarding. We walked up the double staircase. The door to our car opened right at the top of the stairs. We went up three steps, went forward as the car attendant asked and sat down. Less than 10 minutes after leaving our hotel room, we were in our seats and ready togo. Try that at the airport.

    We had a discussion of Hoosier phrases with Diane yesterday. When somebody chokes, we would say the food “went down the Sunday throat.” We also ate supper, not dinner. I referred to one of my aunts as being “a caution,” a phrase the others had not heard.

    As the train now heads north, I find, as I always do, that I’m glad. The north refreshes me, invigorates. Mostly, it is home. Indiana is where I’m from and a place that holds the precious memories of childhood, but it is no longer home, except in the sense of that familiar place where I grew up.

    We ate breakfast today with a former Marine corps A6 Intruder pilot and his wife, a librarian. He was not a person I would have chosen for conversation and that made this another wonderful moment. We found both him and his wife delightful company. He expressed a keen interest in the Kindle. They are on their way from Lynchburg, Virginia (they are Episcopalian) to California where his lt col son will hand over command to another officer.

    The pace of the train, the sound of its whistle, plaintive and sometimes forlorn and the comfort of the seats combine with good company and friendy attendants to make the trip a joy.

    Next stop, the Metropolitan Lounge in Union Station, Chicago.


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  • Riding into the Mist of Memory

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane Full Dyan Moon

    South Passenger Lounge, Union Station, Chicago, Ill. 4:00 pm 6/13/09

    Kate and I left home at 10 till 7 this morning. After an on-time arrival we are here near South tracks Gate D. We board the Cardinal around 5:30 for Indianapolis.

    So far Kate does not seem too worn down by the ride, although her hip has begun to bother her a bit. We met a

    Interrupted in Union Station by travel demands.

    Now pulling out of Lafayette, Indiana (Purdue) at 9 pm on the Cardinal. Or, is it 10:00 pm? In Indiana you can never be sure what time it is. I have a life long case of chrononemesia, never quite knowing what time it is in other parts of the world.

    The trackage here, as on much of Amtrak’s routes, causes the train to sway and buckle, then settles down for a time only to bounce up again. I hope the stimulus money goes in part to better laid track and more trains.

    The Cardinal is full as was the Empire Builder. It’s summer of course, always a busier time, but this is a route that usually has a lot of room. Not today.

    We met a lawyer pair at dinner, a prosecutor and a law clerk for a family court judge. We talked dogs, writing and jurisprudence. I also learned that Jerry West is not considered a good guy in his home state of West Virginia. He doesn’t take care of his momma apparently. Or, should I say, allegedly.

    At lunch we met Dominic, a soft spoken man from Spokane, Washington on his way to NYC. He said he sleeps in his roomette and when he wakes up he goes to eat whatever meal is availalble.

    Over breakfast we met a woman from Anoka who had just completed her master’s degree in nursing. She will be a nurse practitioner, a very skilled job. Kate struck up a medical conversation which left me happily watching the Mississippi River glide by with its unglaciated ridges and valleys.

    I finished a James Patterson summer read, the name of which I can’t recall right now only moments after finishing it. I’m still working my way down the list of first books I bought when I got the Kindle three weeks or so ago. It’s traveled with me to South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Now to Indiana.

    Now we roll along in the dark, past the corn and bean fields. Being here always draws down the misty days of youth, so real, yet so long ago, so well remembered yet so changed in memory. Can we ever know who we were, let alone who we are?

    That boy, the one who saved his paper route money and bought a transistor radio, rides a train from his faraway home back home. The boy who fished in Pipe Creek, who played poker on school nights through high school brings another worlds memories back with him. The boy who shot out the insurance salesman’s window with his slingshot slides back into the strange world we all leave one day on the ancient trail of adulthood. It is not a two way trail, there is no going back, save in fragments.

    Those fragments we recall often carry the scent of shame, a burden of grief or those too brief flashes of ectsasy. There was the time Diane Bailey pulled my pants down in front of my friends. My mother picks up the heavy phone set, listens and tears well up in her eyes. Grandpa died. There was, too, that afternoon when I sat in my room, my 33 rpm record player sending out to me for the first time the leitmotifs of the Ring. All these things and so many more, some mundane but most soaked in the incendiary flame of hot emotion float into my heart as this train, this Cardinal dives further toward Indianapolis, further into the world left long ago.


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