Chicago - Day 1 - Jiminized

Friday morning, Amy dropped me off at Love Field on her way to work and I flew to Houston where I changed planes and then flew on to Midway Airport in Chicago. This was my first time flying in to Midway, and the more southerly approach into the city allowed me to see some new areas from the air. Unfortunately it's areas I'm not as familiar with so I didn't know exactly which freeways, rail yards and intermodal terminals I was flying over (that's how I navigate my final approaches to cities) but they were impressive. The newer terminal areas at Midway were nice.

I picked up my rental car around 2PM, a decent black Hyundai Elantra, and navigated my way out of the airport. While on the plane, my grad-school buddy and fellow railroad enthusiast Jim who works for BNSF in Joliet had called. We set up a plan to meet at the La Grange Road Metra station on the BNSF west line, not too far from Midway and just down the freeway from Joliet. JIm and I have been on several rail-related adventures in the past and someday I need to get a copy of all of the video he shot on those trips. Jim is also known for his aggressive model railroad weathering techniques and is the only person I know who often claims that the Penn Central is his favorite railroad.

The La Grange Road station is in the middle of the La Grange neighbourhood of Chicago, and the blocks surrounding the station have nice small town downtown feel, populated by coffee shops, family-run restaurants and unique shops, and, of course, a Borders right at the intersection of La Grange Road and the BNSF tracks, diagonally adjacent to the train station. The BNSF line at this point has three tracks and is fairly busy. As we were both arriving, Amtrak's California Zephyr raced past on its way out of Chicago. Jim and I dug out our cameras to waste some film recoding the passage of several freight trains before communter train traffic picked up as the rush hour began. Betwen trains I was able to catch up with Jim, who just recently discovered that his wife Attalee is expecting, and within a few weeks would be moving Omaha to take a position with the Union Pacific Railroad. So the timing of the trip couldn't have been better.

We grabbed a quick dinner at a strange fast food but not fast food Mexican place about a block from the tracks, getting our meals to go so we could eat them while sitting on the station platform (of course). At the peak of rush hour as traffic on La Grange road slowed to a crwal across the BNSF line, a truck pulling a K-Line container snagged a crossing gate as it began to descend, snapping the gate arm and leavining it dangling precariously in front of traffic. The La Grange police were soon on the scene and the next Metra train was forced to stop and drop off a flagman at the crossing who would flag the crossing by hand util the gate could be repaired. Another Tyler and Jim railfan adventure classic.

With the rush of commuter trains slowing down, Jim headed off to prepare his house for in-laws he had visiting that weekend. I drove west along the BNSF Racetrack, zig-zagging through the suburbs through Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills (where I saw a grain train cruise around the curve Jim had modelled faithfully in N-scale), Downers Grove and Lisle before losing the tracks and taking US 34 out to Naperville. In downtown Downers Grove, I stopped to check out a car show being held in the main business district near the tracks; some very impressive classics lined the streets.

It was dark by the time I checked in to the Hampton Inn in north part of Naperville near I-88. It turned out that the hotel was in the middle of a big business park full of headquarters buildings that were largely abandoned for the weekend, so it was very quiet with the excpetion of what seemed to be a large extended family group in town for a wedding. After some cartoon network and a call to Ames it was time for sleep.