Day 5: Minneapolis to Chicago on the Empire Builder

Hmm, somehow I missed the moment when we crossed over the Mississippi. I woke up as we were running through the suburbs and rail yards of the Twin Cities, but I just failed to notice the bridge. Maybe it happened while I was taking care of certain - ahm - personal morning business … Anyway, we arrived at the St. Paul depot still about 3 hours behind schedule, so at least we hadn’t lost any more time overnight. But people were starting to get worried about their connections in Chicago - luckily for me, I had planned an overnight stop, so I didn’t have to worry.

After our station stop at St Paul, we started quite a stretch of riverside running along the big Mississippi river - but at La Crosse, we turned to the east and then ran across Wisconsin to get to Milwaukee. From there, it was a straight shot down to Chicago - in the end, we got lucky that we didn’t pick up any further delay, since we ran right into rush hour traffic on Metra.

By the time I had detrained and made my way out of Union Station, it was dark outside and since I didn’t feel so well (I seemed to have picked up a cold), I took a cab over to the hotel and went to bed early.

Schedule and actual times:
…
St. Paul-Minneapolis - ar 10:05a (7:05a - 3:00L)
St. Paul-Minneapolis - lv 10:23a (7:35a - 2:48L)
Red Wing - 11:30a (8:39a - 2:51L)
Winona - 12:36p (9:46a - 2:50L)
La Crosse - 1:12p (10:22a - 2:50L)
Tomah - 1:52p (11:03a - 2:49L)
Wisconsin Dells - 2:35p (11:44a - 2:51L)
Portage - 2:54p (12:02p - 2:52L)
Columbus - 3:25p (12:32p - 2:53L)
Milwaukee - 4:48p (2:00p - 2:48L)
Glenview - 5:48p (3:00p - 2:48L)
Chicago Union Station - 6:12p (3:40p - 2:32L)

Posted in: Uncategorized | March 22, 2006 9:49 pm