Travelin' To Chicago

Back in June when we made the decision to go to Chicago to see "Hamilton", our friend Tim Baker, who, ironically, is an airline pilot, said, "Hey, you ought to go to Chicago by train!"  Now this was a thought that had never occurred to us, but the more we thought about it, the more we liked the idea - taking a long passenger train trip had long been on our bucket list - so we called Amtrak, and purchased our tickets   on the Capital Limited.....

....for a room in a sleeper car, that also included a private bathroom with a shower.  It would be an adventure!

Our train was to leave Pittsburgh at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, and it left right on time.  

 Boarding in Pittsburgh

Our sleeper car was roomy until the Porter folded out the bench seat into a bed.  Then things got a little tight:

Marilyn channelling her inner Eva Marie Saint.

(That makes me Cary Grant!)

When that seat you see above was converted to a bed, the space between the bed and the sink shrunk to about six inches.  The bed sleeps two (there is an upper bunk that can fold down, which we opted not to do because that would eliminate any headroom that you had).  The bed is slightly wider than a twin bed.  In all honesty, it was not the most comfortable of sleeping arrangements, and we had to figure our some tricky configurations to get into positions that made sleeping a viable option.  It was okay, but let me put it this way, you don't want to spend your honeymoon riding in one of these cars, if you get my drift.

Then there was the combination shower and lav.

Yep, the john is in the shower, but it wasn't like showering in a phone booth.  A phone booth would have been much bigger!  Still, we both managed to take a shower, although not at the same time (remember what I said above about this not being good for a honeymoon), which we considered quite an accomplishment.  (NOTE TO SELVES: We are NEVER going to move into a Tiny House.)

We have had a lot of laughs over the entire thing, but the trip truly was the adventure we thought it would be.  The ride itself, the motion of the train cars as they traveled over the tracks was quite relaxing and even soothing.  The food - we had breakfast on the way to Chicago and dinner on the return trip to Pittsburgh - was quite good.  At both meals we dined with other couples, both seasoned train travelers, and had very interesting conversations.  The treatment and the service we received from Amtrak was excellent in every step of the process.  And because the train travelled at night, we were able to have two full days in Chicago while spending only one night in the city.

I will tell you that the Amtrak station in Pittsburgh is pretty dinky and not at all special, but in Chicago, well, that was something else.  We arrived into and departed from Chicago at the landmark Union Station, and it was beautiful.

It was elegant and you just sense that you are in a space that was built for another age in American history, space that has been preserved for the 21st century.  It was like something you would see in a movie, and speaking of movies, we actually entered the Station using these steps:

You may recognize them from the Kevin Costner/Sean Connery movie, "The Untouchables".  I was disappointed that we didn't see a woman with a baby carriage attempting to get down these steps, although my maneuvering a forty pound wheeled piece luggage down them probably came close to what the lady in the movie had to do.

One observation. We all know how onerous air travel has become these days with all of the security concerns, baggage examination, metal detectors and such, so the fact that there was none of that boarding the trains - NONE! - sure was convenient.  I mean you got to the station, checked your ticket, and walked onto the train.  It was nice, but at the same time somewhat disconcerting.  Shouldn't there have been some checking of what was being brought on board?  That suitcase I was lugging on board could have been filled with fifty pounds of plastic explosives and no one would have been the wiser.  Like I said, a little disconcerting when you thought about it.  In Chicago, we did notice that Union Station was patrolled by lots and lots of Chicago police, each with a dog (you can see one in one of the photos above).  Presumably, these were bomb sniffing dogs.

As I said, the train trip was every bit the adventure we thought that it was going to be.  Would we do it again?  We have asked ourselves this several times in the last few days.  I don't think that we would do it for a long cross country, multi-day trip, but we have discussed the possibility of doing it for a short term trip, possibly to New York City or Washington DC at some point in the future.  We shall see.

The Big Engine that could, and 

did, pull us to Chicago!

And I can't write about our transportation on this trip without mentioning UBER.  In all, we made five UBER rides (to and from our house and the Amtrak station in Pittsburgh, and three rides while in Chicago) on this trip and spent about $65 in doing so.  We didn't have to pay to park anywhere, didn't have to rent a car, or put several hundred miles on our own car to get there.  It was great!  It was, as friend Dan puts it, the Cat's Ass!

I have one more Post in me on this trip, and that will concern what we did while in Chicago before and after seeing "Hamilton".  That one will come in another day or two.