Taking the Train

After hearing a friend talking about taking the train from St. Louis back to Michigan. During her trip, she was talking to the conductor who mentioned the train from Denver to San Francisco having nice scenery. So I did a little research and thought seriously about doing this but before committing to such a long trip I wanted to see what the train was like since I'd never ridden the train in the US before (did once in Japan and Canada).

So anyways, went to the Amtrak website and got a ticket to Chicago. Decided to make a day trip out of it. So I caught the train in Ann Arbor and came back on the late train back.

These are some of pictures on the way out. I apologize for the quality of some as 70 mph is not conducive to taking pictures.

This is my train out to Chicago as I am getting ready to board it.

This is the conductor taking tickets. It's amazing how much it reminded me of stories of riding the train in days of old. The train itself was very comfortable and the trip out to Chicago was very relaxing even if there was a delay as we had to wait for a freight train. The trip back was also pretty relaxing even though there apparently was an incident of some sort. And after a search, I find it.

This is the train station in Jackson. Looks almost like a throwback.

The train station in Battle Creek.

I'm not a huge rail fan but I do like trains so one of the cool things was looking out and seeing all the trains on the way to Chicago. This is a Canadian National engine.

An Amtrak engine.

A view of Chicago as we are heading into the station.

The outside of the old Union Station.

So it was very fun taking the train to Chicago. I will definately do this again and will look further into taking the train out west.