out the window. Upon our arrival in Rochester, I had an impromptu staff meeting with associate editor Otto Vondrak from the
vestibule of my
sleeper. This station is so busy, it had to be spotted twice to handle the loads. Morning was somewhere in Indiana, and most of breakfast was spent sitting still on a grade crossing in Waterloo; so much for scenery rolling past your win- dow while you eat.
Arrival in Chicago was in mid-morn-
ing and I had about five hours before getting on the Southwest Chief. I had seen photos of a pretty neat junction on the Chicago Transit Authority in the Loop that I learned was shootable from a parking deck. I made my way to the intersection of Lake and Wells and found the location. Sure enough, it looked down on a junction with connec- tions in three of the four quadrants of the crossing. Trains were frequent and I tried a variety of angles. With so many geometric lines in the photo, it was a bit difficult to figure out which lines to make parallel to the edges of the photo (and the looking-down angle didn’t help matters). I tried horizontals and verticals and even some “Batman” odd angles, but couldn’t quite come up with the proper composition. After getting several trains at the Loop, I headed out onto CTA on the Blue Line towards O’Hare Airport. The 2200-series cars are making their last stand on this line before being replaced by newer cars, and while none are used on the front or back of train sets (they are always sandwiched mid-train, making photos difficult) I did make sure to ride a few of the cars. It was cloudy, but I made a few stops for pho- tos, some with the Chicago skyline in the background. The line ducked back underground for a couple of stations (the Belmont Station being particular- ly nice), but when the tracks went above ground again west of Belmont they were in the median of an inter- state highway. Not caring for the noise, I turned back to downtown Chicago and explored Union Station before it was time to board the Chief.
OPPOSITE: Before departing New York’s Penn Station the author found this doorway, the only remnant of the original Pennsylvania Station in a public location in the new facility. TOP: The author surveys the scene from the vestibule of his sleeper as the westbound Lake Shore Limited makes its nightly stop in Rochester, New York. OTTO M. VONDRAK PHOTO MIDDLE: Passengers detrain the Lake Shore Limited in Chicago’s Union Station on Octo- ber 19. LEFT: Chicago Union Station’s Great Hall is relatively quiet at midday. The author couldn’t help but be impressed by the grandeur of this building, especially compared with the glorified bus terminal that is New York’s Penn Station.
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