Why I Oughta...

On most days, I commute to and from work through Chicago's Union Station and barely notice the station as I hustle off the train, down the platform and up/out of the station. But a few weeks ago, Nat sent me/tagged me in a friend's Instagram post while I was at the office.  At first, it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.  Brooke's post is embedded below and if you're following her on Instagram, it shouldn't come as a surprise that her photo features Mickey Mouse.  But, then the caption hit me and realized that she was talking about *my* train station.  She was there, on a fake beach with Mickey the Mouse.  What the What? View this post on Instagram Mickey and some friends from @disneyaulani showed up at Chicago’s Union Station today and reminded me how much I love that Hawaiian paradise. Brb checking flights. 😎🏝🌺✈️ . . . . . #alohawindycity #disneyaulani #disneyvacationclub #hawaii #mic...

I go through Union Station everyday that I'm downtown for work, but I very rarely go through the Great Hall.  Most of Union Station is gross, but it is slowly improving - starting with the unveiling of the renovation to the Great Hall.  I took this photo last week showing off the new (costly!) skylight and you can see a little bit of scaffolding in the upper reaches of the Hall.  From the Tribune : Union Station’s Great Hall, a stopping point for millions of travelers since 1925, is a lot brighter this holiday season, thanks to a $22 million renovation of its skylight and decorative walls and ceiling.  The centerpiece of the Great Hall is the 219-foot-long skylight rising 115 feet above the floor.  For almost a year, the skylight has been obscured by a suspended working deck as Berglund Construction and architect Goettsch Partners repaired it and added another modern, protective skylight 5 feet above the original. Natural light in the Great Hall has no...

Over the years, I've posted a series of photos of various, interesting train cars that I've come across on my rides on Metra.  The first one was this MTA Metro North car from New York that I saw on the Union Pacific West line in 2012 .  Then in 2015, I saw these neat passenger cars from Union Pacific sitting in the Proviso Yard .  Today, I'm adding a bunch of interesting cars to the collection here on the blog.  And all of these were in one long line sitting in the yard just south of Union Station.  They are all passenger cars starting with the two you see at the top:  a Pennsylvania passenger car called the "Frank Thomson" and a The Milwaukee Road baggage (I think) car.  Here's a closer look at the car from The Milwaukee Road: You can see in the photo above another passenger car with a maroon horizontal strip in line next to The Milwaukee Road baggage car, but I didn't get a better picture of it.  Also note that these photos are...

Down in the bowels of Union Station these days you'll find this hourglass and floor/wall takeover from Travel Wisconsin encouraging all of us to get up to 'see the fall color before the leaves fall' .  The hourglass is clever and in terms of size it is pretty big and grabs your attention as you leave the Great Hall and head to your platforms, so it seems like a nice placement. Really seems like Wisconsin is trying to horn in on the whole Pure Michigan thing, right?  Now that I'm not a Michigander any longer (or Michigander by lake house), I'm rooting for Wisconsin.  Cute campaign all around

Photo from thethirdcity Over on his blog, Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg does his typical brilliant job of dissecting the news and making me think and smile about the minuscule $12M renovation that Union Station is about to undertake.   When we lived with Nat's parents while we were fixing our house, I took the train in from Naperville everyday and used Union Station.  Now...I get the good fortune of using Ogilvie everyday.  And there is no comparison.  Union Station is just flat out awful.  *Gross* is a good way to put it.  And.. Steinberg points out that they want to fix the old stairs.  And...he thinks it is a bad idea : Union Station is a hell hole — loud, crowded, smoky, cold, in winter, airless in summer, dripping cascades of what please God is water all year round.   So news that Amtrak finally plans to toss $12 million into fixing has to be welcome, although anybody who has spent anything on home repair has to imme...