CTA Holiday Bus and Train, December 2021
No, the Holiday Train isn’t The Polar Express ( that’s in Owosso ). This is a decoration inside Union Station in Chicago, where this tale unfolds. I needed a spoiler-free lead image :)
Come, gather ‘round as I share the story of the longest intercity (and interstate!) transit trip I’ve taken to date.
Three states. Three cities. Three days of fun.
This is an expansion of a livethread originally posted to Twitter .
Foreword: Pandemic-safe travel
Before we depart, grab the safety card in the seat pocket in front of you because we’ve gotta review some ground rules:
I took this trip in December 2021, about a week before Christmas, during a COVID-19 surge brought about by holiday travel. The safest option would’ve been to stay home as this was a non-essential trip, but I took a number of precautions to bring the risk down to a level I was willing to accept and successfully completed the trip without getting myself or others sick. At this time the State of Illinois was still enforcing a mask mandate in all public indoor spaces alongside the federal mask mandate on public transit.
These guidelines I set for myself two years ago are similar to the rules I stick to today in the absence of mask requirements and readily available PCR testing. And it’s not just me.
This request can be found at the bottom of every unofficial Amtrak timetable published by the Rail Passengers Association .
Public transit is for everyone. Doing your part to ensure its accessibility to all means wearing a mask onboard the train, even when nobody’s forcing you to do it. Yes, in 2023.
In short, my recipe for a low-risk trip:
- Traveling with good-fitting N95s or equivalent masks. 2021 me was still rockin' a surgical mask along with pretty much everybody else - the ol' blue masks won't quite cut it anymore. I'm partial to 3M Auras for the best comfort and the earloop Powecoms for ease of reuse. (No affiliation, just personal preference - you can find 'em with a quick web search.)
- If it's fall, waiting to travel until two weeks after receiving the seasonal COVID-19 booster.
- Isolating to the extent possible in the two weeks prior to and following the trip.
- Rapid-testing upon my return, and if possible, scheduling a PCR 5-7 days after the end of the trip.
- Avoiding crowded event venues if possible (concerts, movie theaters, etc).
- Most importantly, avoiding indoor dining at restaurants and instead eating either outdoors or in emptier indoor spaces.
I say low-risk, not risk-free, because during a multi-hour train or bus ride you’ll have to eat at some point. Unmasking briefly a time or two is unavoidable. If you’re truly looking to be as safe as humanly possible, portable CO2 monitors are your friend.
Modern Amtrak passenger cars, such as the new Siemens Venture coaches, have great airflow - much better than what you’d find riding in a car (the automotive kind) with the windows up. When they’re empty or near empty, it’s effectively the same as being outside.
For me, the city itself is the destination on a trip like this, so sticking to safety measures doesn’t dampen the traveling experience all too much. There’s plenty to see and do: Self-guided architecture tour, walk around with a local snack, sit in the park, go on a bike ride, and so on. A slice of Chicago style pizza tastes just as good on a paper plate while strolling Michigan Avenue as it does at a table. Maybe even a little better, I’d argue.
But this is the Midwest, it gets cold and snowy out there!
Indeed it does, and that’s when you get to play my favorite game: Finding a city’s indoor hiding spots!
Every major city has at least one spot like this. Look for farmers’ markets, buildings with large public lobbies, convention centers, transit centers with multiple platforms (such as Ogilvie Transit Center’s quiet north concourse, pictured here), and college campuses, just as a few ideas. After a while, you get a sixth sense for it.
Anyway, that’s my safety spiel. On with the show!
Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited: The Secret Way from Detroit to Chicago
To start this trip, I woke up at 3am, got in my car, and set off on the hour and a half drive to Tol– no, wait, come back!!
Sadly, yes: The first and last leg of this journey was only possible by car. Due to my travel plans, I wouldn’t be at Union Station early enough on the last day of my trip to catch the last train to Michigan. Enter the Lake Shore Limited, the very last train to leave the station every night at 9:30pm. Toledo would serve as my gateway to the windy city.
Amtrak operates a thruway bus between Detroit and Toledo, but at the time of this trip I was living in Rochester Hills with no way to get to Detroit by public transit early in the morning and late at night.
I made it in just after 5:00am. Mercifully, The Lake Shore Limited — often half-lovingly called the “Late-For-Sure Limited” by regular riders due to constant freight traffic interference - was actually early, coming in hot behind the Capitol Limited.
The westbound Capitol Limited rolls through Toledo.
The Lake Shore Limited screeeeeeches to a stop shortly after.
And so began my journey on the first long-distance Amtrak train I’d ever ridden. The Lake Shore Limited runs on Amfleet coaches designed for extended travel - the seats lean way farther back than the seats in Horizons, Amtrak’s regional railcars that predate the Venture coaches.
About 30 people and I had to tiptoe around sleeping passengers to claim empty seats. I wasn’t the only first-timer.
Sadly, 110mph service is pretty rare outside the Northeast Corridor. Michigan is lucky to have it.
Traveling on a long-distance train that boards overnight forces you to meet people. As we crossed into Indiana and the first rays of sunlight filtered into the car, everyone who’d already been onboard woke up and said hi to the person next to them who wasn’t there when they fell asleep. To me that’s kinda fun, in a way.
Passing the historic train station in Elkhart, Indiana
Notably, a connection between Amtrak and the South Shore Line’s eastern terminus at South Bend International Airport is actually possible, though it involves a fairly long transfer. Transpo Route 4 connects the station and the airport every 30 minutes on weekdays and every hour on Saturdays.
Unfortunately most South Shore Line trains don’t travel all the way to the airport, instead turning around in Michigan City. That puts this connection firmly in “plausible, but not recommended” territory.
The Lake Shore Limited runs parallel to the South Shore Line tracks for a couple miles.
This train is unique in that is has both a café car and a dining car. The train splits in Albany, with one car going to Boston and the other to New York. On this leg of the trip, coach passengers had access to the café car.
A tasty egg sandwich next to a can of inferior ginger ale
You can do quite a bit on the train: Socialize, look out the window, read a book, work on your laptop… watch a live feed of your train on your laptop and then edit the video together on your laptop…
This is the Chesterton, Indiana railcam maintained by Riley’s Railhouse .
Navigating the Loop
We made it to Union Station on time, and I set out to find the reason I’d made the trip: The CTA Holiday Train and Holiday Bus.
Chicago Union Station spares no expense on holiday decor.
I’d been inside Union Station a number of times, but I’d never had the chance to see the inside of Ogilvie Transit Center. I knew it had a large food court, and that was reason enough to start off my day there.
Downtown Chicago is so dense that there’s no space for a train station to have a building all to itself. Millennium and Union Stations are underground. Ogilvie’s platforms are attached to a large office building.
On a whim, I bought a Metra day pass and planned to take the UP-North line up a few stops to the north suburbs while I waited for the Holiday Bus to enter service. The CTA didn’t publish the exact schedule for the bus in 2021 in an effort to avoid overcrowding issues. All I had to go on was that the bus would be in service on Route 3, King Drive, between 11:45am and 7:00pm. The earlier I could catch it, the better.
I didn’t navigate the station fast enough to catch the next train, but by happy accident I discovered the North Concourse. The main food court and office building lobby isn’t directly connected to this concourse, so it sees very little foot traffic during off-peak times. I re-planned the rest of my trip on the fly around using this concourse for meal breaks.
The track announcements dissolve into background noise… eventually
I knew I’d need to get over to Millennium Park to catch Route 3, which is connected to the Pedway. I tried to get in through the Thompson Center, but it wasn’t open - instead, a large news crew was filming outside it, which I later learned was the announcement of the building’s acquisition which would make way for Google’s redevelopment of the center . I’ll have my redo of a Thompson Center visit very soon - stay tuned for that!
Quick Detour: The Thompson Center
👋 Hi. Future Corey here.
"Very soon" ended up being on the last possible day, in December 2023. I drove to Chicago on the 30th for the sole purpose of seeing the Thompson Center atrium during the final hour it was ever open to the public. Google has since gutted the interior of the building as part of its plans for the space.
Corey (@coreyjrowe)
My last visit is also my first. Farewell to the Thompson Center 🫡
December 30, 2023 • 10:44 pm
The Thompson Center was previously the home of the State of Illinois government offices and a public food court. It remains the busiest transit hub in the Loop with a dedicated callout on CTA trains.
So, sadly, there won't be a dedicated post on the Thompson, as I never had the chance to properly explore the building. But fear not: It's well documented online! Look up "Sbarro Urbanists" if you want to read up on a grassroots effort to preserve the building and other postmodern atriums like it over the years.
Now, back to Past Corey to continue the Holiday Train adventure 🎤
Finding the Holiday Bus
Just before 1pm, the holiday bus finally showed up on the tracker at the end of the route on 95th street. I walked south while it made its way north, and after an hour of hoofing it… success!
The Holiday Bus is truly a one-of-a-kind experience. And this isn’t any kind of special run or dedicated route - it’s just a regular bus that’s in service! It takes a lot of people by surprise, which is part of the charm.
I wanted to publish the footage as soon as possible, in case anything went wrong with my phone (sadly, cold weather is a Pixel’s worst enemy). So, it was time for a quick stop at another hidden Chicago space - though this one’s hardly a secret.
You know the line: This is…
Video editing from the Winter Garden, the top floor of Harold Washington Library
The finished product! Watch on YouTube
Finding the Holiday Train
Next up, the main event: The Holiday Train. Same as the bus, CTA published the line but not the exact runs. I knew to head to the Blue Line and that was it. It ended up entering service at O’Hare so I grabbed the next westbound Blue Line train to Damen, the station for Wicker Park, to head it off.
It’s hard to take a bad photo of a CTA station.
After a quick stop at the famous, now-defunct Vitamin Vault…
… I headed back up to the platform and waited for the evening’s grand finale!
Returning to Union Station
I let the Holiday Train leave to give other people space to take photos with their families and kids. I hopped the next, much emptier Blue Line train back to Lake and transferred to the Red Line through the Pedway.
One day, I’ll explore down here. But that’s an adventure for a trip when I’m not by myself.
I had a few hours to kill, so I took the train up to Wrigley Field and poked around Uptown a bit. I made use of the Metra weekend pass I’d activated earlier on the return trip to the North Concourse for dinner.
Metra is such a unique regional rail system. Here they have these heavy-rail, Amtrak sized trains, and yet one person can go stand on a plank of wood next to the track and singlehandedly command the entire train to stop and pick them up. No station, no reservations, no platform staff: Just a wave.
A soft light pierces the dark, frigid cold
I made it back to Union Station just in time to board… the Hiawatha?!
Surprise, this trip doesn’t end here!