...I came to Chicago on Thursday for a little Railfanning, a little Ryder Cup and a little Chisox.
Arrived Thursday afternoon w/my $9 3 day pass courtesy of Groupon. Validated at O'hare and dropped my stuff at the O'hare Marriott. The North stairs at Cumberland are really in bad shape. Came back to the Blue Line and rode Downtown, probably my last trip on the 2200s. The interiors are still in really good shape. There must have been a schedule problem because we went express from Damen to Clark-Lake. The little red express lights came on inside the car. The Blue seems in pretty good shape. Since I had the 3 day pass, I walked on Lake Street to State and jumped on the Red, rather than ride to Jackson. I rode the Red up to Howard, my old neighborhood as I wanted to see the new station. The Red Line is really in bad shape! Lots of slow zones. Argyle and Thorndale are closed for rebuilding and I don't know what they are doing at Loyola. They always seem to be working on that station. I like the new Howard station, even though they took out the bridge at the North end, you can still get a good view of the yards from the platform. I like the "North Shore Line" sign on the street, though it isn't the original. I rode the Purple back downtown, why do they need to make all those stops like Wellington, Diversey and Armitage? At Clark and Lake, I rode the Blue back to Cumberland.
On Friday, I rode the Blue to Jefferson Park and jumped on Metra, the old C&NW line to Arlington Park to catch the bus to Medinah. After the golf, I rode back down to Union Station on the Metra Elgin line. I think that was Milwaukee Road. There was no chance to foam as the front car was closed. I made my way back to Clark-Lake and took the Green Line to 35th. I hoped to ride the new 5000s but no luck. I had to settle for one of the work motor cars with the striped fronts. We passed a 5000 set by the 14th St. porthole, I think they look just like the 3200s. After the game, I took the Red back to Jackson, it was very slow between 35th and Cermack. I walked over to the Blue and rode back to Cumberland. There was weekend work at Irving Park and Forest Park bound trains were wrong-railing between Montrose Interlock and Addison Interlock. We had to wait about 10 minutes, which was painful because it is a quick trip through Irving Park.
On Saturday, I took the Blue back downtown at 04:45 to catch the Metra Special train to Medinah. I can't remember the last time I was on a Blue Line 4 car train! I allowed some extra time to get thru the Irving Park issue. We went pretty much straight through. I rode to Clinton and walked over to Union Station. It was crazy, I don't think any of the Europeans slept on Friday night. METRA ran 2 non-stop trains to Medinah, at 06:00 and 06:40. I would up taking the second train, it was SRO. I like the METRA $7 Weekend ticket, that's steal. The non stop ride out to Medinah only took 32 minutes. I only stayed the morning as I had to catch my flight back to New York. I rode back in to Union Station, again the front car was closed. I grabbed a Potbelly sandwich and walked to Dearborn and Monroe and caught the Blue back to Cumberland. We went straight thru Irving Park. I gave my card to someone at Cumberland as it was good for the rest of the day and caught the hotel shuttle to ORD.
