How Far Do You Think To The Next Gas Station?

Day 12 : 2nd October 1996

“Gareloch Head, yeah I know there, used to go there from Holyloch when I was on submarines!”

This was the start of the long, all be it indirect, journey home. Deciding not to dump the car back at O’Hare straight away (we were paying for the day after all) we dropped in at the apparently wealthy little town of Glenview on the Fox Lakes line. Oddly, as we drove round, we found that all the phone boxes in town were bright red British ones rather than the US shower cubicle type. Bizarre! Of course one had to be raked in for a phot!

The operator says insert 4000 ten pences for Birmingham.

Metra F40C 605 departs Glenview for Fox Lakes.

After this it was an F40 into the Loop for a look round. Another F40 back to Glenview and we stumbled upon a model shop. Another bonus, the recently released Life Like N gauge E-units for sale, at about a third UK prices! Purchases made it was on to O’Hare to return the car where, peculiarly, it was raining again (must have it’s own weather system), still, at least it cleaned 800 miles worth of muck off the car!

Then it was the CTA back to Jefferson Park, taking care not to go via the park between stations this time, and a few F40s into Madison. Chicago Union at rush hour is a sound, rather than sight, to behold. Completely decked over with buildings it is a huge concrete box. In the rush every track has an F40 or F40C waiting to leave, all blasting flat out on Head End Power (ETH). It’s deafening, talking is pointless, sign language only!

Start of the rush. Metra F40C 608 shoves a commute rake inbound at Western Ave.

We split up here to cover different routes with my target again being the F40Cs on the Elgin line. One out to Western Avenue and the next train arrived with a standard F40. No matter, do it anyway, Noooo! Mistake. At the next interlocking Elgin trains go left, I went straight on! To make matters worse the train now stormed non stops through a number of stations, this was not good!

The conductor soon appeared and I explained the wrong train scenario. No problem, he assured me, it stopped pretty soon. Where? Glenview! AGAIN! There soon followed that traditional American to anyone foreign conversation;

“Where you from?”
“England”

“Haven’t been there in years!”

“Oh you visited England?”
“Yes, well Scotland, the West Highlands”

“Oh right, been up that way myself a bit Gareloch Head, Crianlarich, Fort William”

“Gareloch Head, yeah I know there, used to go there from Holyloch when I was on submarines!”

Well, small world! He also mentioned doing the train to Glasgow commenting “they only had these tiny box locomotives that sounded like Alcos”. Never thought of a 27 that way before.

A quick leap back at Glenview and just time to scrape in a couple of F40Cs to Western Avenue before meeting Barry and Smurf at the bar on Union Station. This was necessary preparation as we now had deal once again with the vagaries of Amtrak

Our train, 48 The Lake Shore Limited back to Boston and New York stood in the platform. The passengers, in their hundreds, however stood behind a rope in traditional Amtrak manner until, about 5 mins from departure we were all allowed to board! Nonsense. As darkness gathered the train departed (LATE!), we departed for the Amcafe car in search of beer. No Sam Adams this time. Milwaukee Red Hook on Eastbound trains apparently. Oh dear, we’ll just have to put up with it then!

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