THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAIN TRIP OF 2019 PART 3 CHICAGO TO CLEVELAND

After taking the Hop on/Hop off Bus in Chicago we took the AMTRAK Lake Shore Limited to Cleveland. The Amtrak station is called the Lakefront Station and arrived at 0545 in the morning. This was a bit of a disappointment because the last time I took a train from Chicago was in 1959 and you could say a few things have changed since than. The train was on the New York Central Railroad and it's terminal was in the Terminal Tower which was then the tallest building in the USA outside of New York. Needless to say, the Lakefront Station doesn't live up to the grandeur of the old TT as we called it.

Cleveland is my place of birth and I grew up there. I still maintain that Cleveland was the ideal place for a kid, especially this kid, to grow up in. I grew up in Garfield Heights a suburb contiguous to to Cleveland. It, Garfield Heights, wasn't big city living and it wasn't quite suburban life either. I became streetwise at an early age but I didn't  have to live among gangs and high crime either. 

My sister also still lives in Cleveland. FYI, I define Cleveland as everyplace between Harrisburg, PA and Chicago. It's not a really nice place to visit and I certainly don't want to live there. There is a lot of culture in Cleveland. There is a world class orchestra and art museum and a huge library to get immersed in as I used to do on one of my many days of playing hooky.  The place has changed a lot, for the good, since I left there fifty nine years ago. I am now a card carrying Long Beach resident. 

We had a nice time while there and I visited with my sister and her husband, saw my childhood friend Art and got reacquainted with my cousin Nancy whom I hadn't seen in decades. 

But five or six days is all my crotchety self can take these days so we stayed at the Red Roof Inn near the airport and then took a Uber to the station to catch the 0550 on the Thursday morning train to Buffalo where we are now.

 

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAIN TRIP OF 2019 PART 2 CHICAGO TO INDIANAPOLIS

We had the pleasure of riding a Greyhound bus from Chicago to Nap Town. We had taken a Mexican bus from Loreto BCS to Tijuana three years ago but I haven't been on a Greyhound been on a Greyhound for many years. 

After 44 hours on the train with only the Subway sandwiches and an apple fritter, and little sleep on the train, we were beat and we wanted to sleep but first food. I was wanting a world famous Chicago hot dog so I went to a dog and sandwich shop at Union Station and bought a bratwurst with chili-cheese fries. A well balanced meal. The brat had a real, thick casing and was delicious. 

Some things had changed and other things didn't. The bus itself was modern and comfortable but it seemed to have more than a few miles on it. We departed Amtrak's Union Station in Chicago and the bus was carrying the usual assortment of  prototypical long distance bus riders, the less well healed. 

We stayed at the Crown Plaza at Indy. Jamie told me that the hotel was built inside of  the old Indianapolis train station and I thought oh swell. A hotel inside a hundred plus year old train station which is probably in a ghetto. What a pleasant surprise it was. The "ghetto" has been mostly rebuilt and the hotel is one of the nicest I've stayed at and I've stayed in hotels all over the world. Some of the rooms are in refurbished Pullman train cars, I am sure I will be staying the again.

THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAIN TRIP OF 2019 PART 1 LOS ANGELES TO CHICAGO

We boarded AMTRAK train #4 in Fullerton, CA which is a suburb of LA at 1835, 6:35 to you civilians, for Chicago. I have never taken a long trip by train in the USA. I went to Chicago from Cleveland on the New York Central for boot camp in 1959 and took the Pennsylvania Railroad from Cleveland to Philadelphia in 1960 when I went on active duty. But that was it.

Now I have traveled all over Europe Australia and Japan by train. We traveled around Europe in 1975 on a thirty day Eurail Pass and that was a very good trip, almost perfect. So I was expecting a very similar experience with AMTRAK. With the Eurail Pass we just hopped on any train and flashed our pass and sat down in a compartment. Not so here. We bought  our passes in Fullerton and after they had our money they explained that there was only one "pass seat" still available on this train.  It took another $69 to get a second seat to get us both to Chicago. This was all taking place about five minutes before the train was due to arrive at the station. I've been shot at and missed and shit at and hit but even this was trying my anxiety.

At 1830 we had both of our tickets in hand and at 1835 the train breezed into the station. We were told by both the station agent and the conductor at the door of the train that the train was "fully booked". Because of this fully booked situation, we HAD to sit in our assigned seats. Well our car was about 50% occupied and some of the other cars looked to be less than 25% occupied.

Pros and cons: the European trains had compartments and almost always we had a compartment to ourselves. The AMTRAK cars have no compartments and are large with tons of legroom but we had to endure whatever neighbors we were seated by. The food on the Euro trains was very good and a little pricey but still affordable. The only thing missing on the AMTRAK dining car was a highwayman with a gun while you were being robbed. A small, 12 ounce, bottle of water was $2.25 and if you wanted an airline bottle of  booze was $7.00. The needless complications on AMTRAK reflect, in my ever so humble opinion, the bureaucratic mind set of the morons running what could be a going national railroad concern that severely degrades  the experience.

On a score of one to ten, I would rate the Euro trains a 9.5. Amtrak is about a seven.

It looks like two days down and 29 to go.