Sunday was the History. Music. Chicago. train ride. It was pretty much everything we imagined it would be, we had our own 2 car train to hang out in, complete with an operator who's won the CTA rodeo 2 years in a row.
No, I'm serious. Apparently once a year the CTA hosts a competition for train and bus operators. I want to know where I can get tickets to this, because I'm still not sure I believe it happens. The whole trip was full of weird little nuggets like that. You'd think living here I'd know most of this stuff. But then, I haven't read all of chicago-l.org (yet). There's definately a lot of history that I still don't know.
Anyway, we got to ride all the random rare parts of the El that you see curving off, with no real idea where they go. Like the 13th St. incline, which I rode once, in the dark, coming back from K2:
We had fun snacks from Chicagoist, and jazz interludes from Planet Earth Chicago. There are a ton of pictures on flickr. I know it all sounds terribly tourist-y, like the kind of thing your out-of-town friends do while you're at work. but these were all the people that hang out on CTAtattler, chicago_el, and who live by the CTA Alerts:
Aug 27 1:50PM
Fr: jamesbondsv
Operator just walked thru red line just north of addison. Delayed 10 mins. Late to tony's tour
hilarious. 
Anyway, thanks Tony!
3 Comments
Hey, I say: make no apologies. If tourist-y means having a good time, learning some history, taking awesome photographs and listening to great music what’s not to like? Thumbs up ^^.
P.S. Chicago sounds sooo big and scary to a backcountry girl like me but also interesting.;)
That sounds like fun! I would love to ride a train like that… Here in Manila, our three major trains are basically elevated. You see houses from above instead of like the one on your photo.
That’s it. Chicago will be in our itenerary IF we pull enough cash for our honeymoon
coyote said:
heh, yeah. i was mostly apologizing for not making it sound as cool as it was.
GAiL said:
most of the CTA is elevated (hence being called ‘The El’), to about the height of the 3 flats that cover most of the city. there are only 2 subway lines (out of 8 total lines)
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