Chapter 9: Winds of Change

March 15th, 1995, 10:05 AM CT; Union Station; Chicago IL

Pulling in to Chicago Union Station was a very familiar experience for George. The station was only partially underground, as opposed to Penn Station which was fully underground. In addition to the relatively modern Amtrak fleet that made up the bulk of Chicago Amtrak operations- F40s pulling Amfleets, Horizon, and Superliner trains, with only a few Heritage cars sprinkled on most of them- the Broadway Limited was really the last of Amtrak’s all Heritage train- the rest of the trains in the station were Metra commuter trains. Those were a mix of equipment, most of it very old- Pullman and Budd gallery commuter cars pulled by a mixture of GPs of various power levels, some F40s, and a bunch of EMD bulldogs.

George and Jill said goodbye to Uncle Dave, with Uncle Dave customarily refusing the customarily offered tip. They dragged George’s carry-on with them, but Jill had no desire to go to the coach to pick up the few scraps of clothing her Aunt had allowed her to pick up from the Salvation Army bins. They were, at best, a bad memory for her. They walked down the whole length of the train and past it’s engines, quite a long walk, but neither felt they needed the help of a redcap cart.

The station’s head house had been demolished many years before to make way for an office tower, leaving the entirety of the station’s platforms underground and accessed through ugly and antiseptic tunnel-style concourses. Amtrak’s ticketing operation had long been moved into the underground labyrinth. They walked up to the Ticket Desk and George looked around and picked a line that was not the least busy. Jill looked a tad confused, but George winked at her.

Jill looked around. This was sort of like Penn Station, except a little more elaborate, and nowhere near as chaotic; in addition to being an Amtrak station, Penn hosted two commuter rail systems each more than double the size of Metra, and it hosted six subway lines. Chicago Union Station only hosted Amtrak, and a small portion of Metra. It was nowhere near as a busy, and it also lacked the massive underground shopping mall that was attached to Penn station, so many fewer people had reason to be there.

Jill figured that generally train stations were very similar to airports; a bit more elaborate, perhaps. But very similar in nature. And what’s more, the place smelled. Not just smelled; REEKED of diesel fumes. She almost had trouble breathing. The people seemed to bustle, although not with the angry vigor so endemic to airports. While George waited on line, Jill relaxed and people watched, although with a little anxiety, she wasn’t as worried as she could be.

You see, Jill looked a little different, now. George had suggested she unbraid her hair, let it down, and said they would purchase a few things to mildly conceal her appearance in the shops in the station once they were done with dealing with the ticketing arrangements for the different trains they were planning to take. Since the ticketing issue was was so time restrictive, George felt it was important to get it done first.

George finally got to the front of the line.

“Maggie, you’re looking as good as ever,” George smiled.

“And you, George, look older every day,” she said, “Where’s your old man?”

“I’m on my own this trip,” he said, “Got into college early, on my way to L.A ... I walked into some trouble and an additional party and I want to take a different train. Can we move my Southwest Chief reservations to the Desert Wind?”

“You know it’s about nine hours slower and oft-” she started, “Hell, like I need to tell you this.”

They both grinned.

“Let me check availability on the Wind for you...” She tapped on her computer, “There’s coach seats, naturally, but only one sleeping compartment, and it’s a family room. Also, it’ll be ver-”

“Don’t care, I’ll take it.”

“Okay, what’s the passengers name?” Maggie asked.

“Mickey- er, Michelle Shipmen, er, adult” he stuttered.

“Alright. Just so you know, it’ll cost you $1, -” Maggie tried to tell him

“No problem,” George said, flipping his dad’s credit card at her. He had no idea how he was going to explain this to his father, but he would have to do so soon. It didn’t really matter, anyway. His dad would be able to understand his motives, he was sure, and money was not one of the pressing issues in his family. He was generally close enough to his dad that his dad had a pretty high level of respect for his judgement.

Maggie quickly processed the transaction. She noticed that it was a credit card that was registered to John Caldwell, but she knew these people and didn’t mind doing this for them. Most other people she would have questioned. But she knew the family well enough to know that John would not question his son using his credit card for whatever it was.

Maggie printed out the tickets and handed them to George.

“The Desert Wind leaves-” Maggie started.

“-at 3:05, same as the Zephyr,” George finished for her, “Yes, I know. Take care Maggie.”

“Have a lovely trip,” Maggie replied, “And I hope whatever the trouble is, it resolves itself for you.”

“Thanks,” George smiled as he turned away.

With that, George walked toward the Metropolitan lounge, walked in, and handed his carry-on to the redcap, whom he knew. Normally, George would have to check in, but the Red Cap knew he was traveling first class and didn’t bother to ask him for the tickets. His family always travelled first class, if they traveled in an Amtrak-owned car. Amtrak didn’t really have a frequent traveling program, but when the system is so small, there are still perks of being a frequent Traveller.

After getting his bag into the baggage room in the first class lounge, he went with Jill, and they bought some clothes for her at one of the stores in the station; a “Chicago: Windy City” t-shirt, a hat, and a pair of extremely weak reading glasses. She was still wearing the same faded blue jeans, but these days everyone wore faded blue jeans around.

“The glasses, the hat, the different shirt, and the different hair style should make you unrecognizable to people who don’t know you,” George pointed out.

“I guess so,” she admitted, “how come this place is so boring? Why are buildings these days so-”

“Go change,” George said, with a strangely bemused look on his face. I’ll show her, he thought, smiling inwardly.

When she got back, he suggested they go to lunch.

“Do you know a good place for lunch?” Jill asked, “My Uncle actually lives in Oak Brook and we very rarely if ever came into the city itself.”

“I know the best pizza place in the world,” he told her, “It blows New York-style pizza completely out of the water, actually.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Jill replied.

With that, they started walking up a long ramp. As they walked up it, Jill looked up. She actually did a double take followed by a sharp intake of breath.

George smiled, and did his failing best to conceal his automatic laughter at her shock. But given her comment about the ugliness and sterility of the station, her perception of the Great Hall was just too funny. After all, this was one of the most impressive rooms in all of Chicago.

“Oh my god,” she said, staring at the vaulted ceiling of the hallway.

“There’s more,” George said.

As they walked into the famous great hall of Chicago’s beautiful Union Station, Jill was more and more awe-struck by the stunning grandeur of the building. The sky lights, the gilded Corinthian columns, the vaulted ceiling, the marble walls- it was all so beautiful. It looked like a great temple. A great temple dedicated to traveling. It wasn’t, though. It was a great temple dedicated primarily to the ego of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the other roads it deigned to share the space with.

It was a little dirty, but wow was it gorgeous. Like other great stations, it had fallen on hard times. It was owned by Amtrak, and Amtrak barely had the money to keep the functional parts of its system up and running. It didn’t have time to dedicate scarce money to maintaining a grandiose room in its Chicago station that it actually didn’t even need. All of Amtrak’s actual station facilities were in the basement building that served their tracks.

She stared breathlessly at the exquisite grandiosity of the room. The whole building, while technically a Union Station, was in reality a monument to the ego of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the main builder of the station. It wasn’t quite as grand as the stations the Pennsylvania had built in New York City, or their home base of Philadelphia, but it wasn’t far off, either. The original train shed on the other side of South Canal Street had also been an impressive and grandiose building, but that was gone now, replaced by a couple of skyscrapers.

As stunning as it was, the truth was they didn’t have enough time to truly gawk at the station. It was now 10:45 in the morning, and their train left at 3:05; and boarded about 2:40.

“Come on, let’s go get lunch. It’ll take a while and we don’t have much time,” he said, leading her to the huge, tall staircase leading out of the room, which was over a hundred feet from floor to the top of the vaulted and grandiose ceiling.

They started to ascend the stairs when Jill almost tripped and almost fell as her foot slid on the stair tread.

“What the hell ... these stairs...” she gasped, staring at their bizarre treads.

They were worn- very worn. They were worn to the point where you could notice it, the great marble slabs grooved. Nothing could ever do as good a job of showing just how many people had climbed the great stairs of Chicago’s largest train station. The largest train station in the biggest railroad hub in the nation. It also did a good job of showing just how limited Amtrak’s resources were when it came to station restoration; while fascinating, this feature of Union Station was also a potential safety issue.

Located just west of the Chicago River between Adams and Jackson streets, the Chicago Union Station was built in 1925. Although it has a glorious edifice above ground, most of the station is underground. Including approach and storage tracks, the station is gigantic, taking up nearly nine and a half city blocks. It needed the size to handle its traffic, and while it was called a “station,” it only had one through track. The rest of its 24 tracks were stub-end, an arrangement that would usually be called a terminal.

It was originally served by the Pennsylvania Railroad; the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad (“Burlington Route”); the Chicago and Alton Railroad (“The Alton”), and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway (“The Milwaukee Road”). Those railroads all contributed to its construction, as it replaced several individual stations previously operated by those railroads. All long distance trains to Chicago were consolidated to Union Station shortly after Amtrak assumed operation on May 1st, 1971. Its great room is still considered one of the most beautiful rooms in the world, with its statuary, grand balconies, and its 110-foot-high vaulted ceiling.