Traxter 2

Step 2 on my USA Railpass runs from ROC to CHI, as Amtrak abbreviates the stations.  Since my train departed after dark, here’s all I have. 

I passed through Cleveland, and an area of Cleveland over the Cuyahoga I know somewhat, at 0400. That brightly colored tower is Terminal Tower.

Sunrise happened west of Toledo in Archbold OH.  Somewhere around here we left the Great Lakes watershed and entered the Mississippi River watershed.

Bryan OH is home of Spangler Candy Co., makes of Dumdums. 

Waterloo IN has personal significance, since I worked there one summer left in the foggy parts of my memory . . .  as a CDL instructor . . . summer 1986.  Yes, I was a CDL coach . . . double clutching forward  and backing into docks, before I left that very short career.

I had no sense until this trip of the scale of Elkhart IN as a rail center. 

Since I’m heading into more agricultural country on this trip, this is New Carlisle IN.

Whatever associations you have with Gary IN, here’s what I saw from the south side of the tracks.  Had I been on the north side, I would have seen Arcelor Mittal/Cliffs furnaces in Burns Harbor IN a bit earlier.

East Chicago IL hints at Chicago, a rail hub.

Chicago Skyway Bridge over the Calumet River.

Tugs– Tanner and Old Mission— in the Calumet River.

Bright Star, built in Sturgeon Bay WI in 2003,  is one of Shoreline’s many tourboats on the Chicago River.

An interesting mural inside Chicago Union Station.  I believe it’s an art deco- and WPA-influenced more recent print.  Leslie Ragan or Robert LaDuke influences?  Someone else?

All photos, any errors, WVD.