July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Ready for a railroad adventure
Back in the Saddle
In the photograph, the railroad depot is well-lit, freshly painted, and clean.
In my memory, it was derelict.
The photo was of a rally in Fort Wayne in hopes of making that city a stop on a proposed high-speed rail line between Chicago and Cleveland.
The memory was from more than 40 years ago, when it was still possible to catch a train in Fort Wayne and find yourself a few hours later at Union Station.
My first trip on that old Penn Central line came when I was maybe 12 years old.
Some travel agency had put together a promotion that was brilliant in concept though a little rough in terms of execution.
The plan was that folks would catch the Fort Wayne train to Chicago, take a bus to Comiskey Field, watch a White Sox game, then take the bus back to the station and the train back to Fort Wayne.
Of course, for those of us in Jay County, the whole thing started with an early wake-up call and an hour drive to the depot in Fort Wayne.
My father saw an ad for the deal and thought of it in terms of a father-son outing. But for some reason, the tickets were sold in threes. In short order, my longtime neighborhood friend Don Starr was signed up to complete the trio.
Once we were on the train, we realized that Dad was the only one who saw this as a father-son event. There were no other kids that I remember on the train. Mostly it was groups of baseball fans who started hitting the beer about the time we left the station.
It didn't matter. In memory, it was a glorious day. What more could a kid ask for: Train ride, big city, baseball game, it had it all.
A few years later, I was making the trip on my own, boarding an ABC Bus Lines unit at Vernie Schmidt's Garage, then hoofing it from the Fort Wayne bus station to the Pennsy depot where I'd board a train to Chicago so I could visit the big city while staying with my brother Steve and his wife while he was going to grad school at Northwestern and she was teaching.
In retrospect, it was the kind of adventure you wouldn't expect a kid to attempt today, but it was a ball.
The train depot, however, looked little like the image in the recent photograph. It was cold. It was dirty. It was scarier in its own way than Chicago, because it had a sense of having been abandoned, as if it had been given up on.
But the recent photo showed what it could be, showed it the way it was when it was new.
And I soon found myself wondering about high-speed rail to Chicago.
Imagine how cool it would be to drive just an hour and get on a super-quick train to that city and its wonders, its sights and its museums.
And then I found myself wishing I were a kid again, ready for the journey, ready for adventure.
All aboard.[[In-content Ad]]
In my memory, it was derelict.
The photo was of a rally in Fort Wayne in hopes of making that city a stop on a proposed high-speed rail line between Chicago and Cleveland.
The memory was from more than 40 years ago, when it was still possible to catch a train in Fort Wayne and find yourself a few hours later at Union Station.
My first trip on that old Penn Central line came when I was maybe 12 years old.
Some travel agency had put together a promotion that was brilliant in concept though a little rough in terms of execution.
The plan was that folks would catch the Fort Wayne train to Chicago, take a bus to Comiskey Field, watch a White Sox game, then take the bus back to the station and the train back to Fort Wayne.
Of course, for those of us in Jay County, the whole thing started with an early wake-up call and an hour drive to the depot in Fort Wayne.
My father saw an ad for the deal and thought of it in terms of a father-son outing. But for some reason, the tickets were sold in threes. In short order, my longtime neighborhood friend Don Starr was signed up to complete the trio.
Once we were on the train, we realized that Dad was the only one who saw this as a father-son event. There were no other kids that I remember on the train. Mostly it was groups of baseball fans who started hitting the beer about the time we left the station.
It didn't matter. In memory, it was a glorious day. What more could a kid ask for: Train ride, big city, baseball game, it had it all.
A few years later, I was making the trip on my own, boarding an ABC Bus Lines unit at Vernie Schmidt's Garage, then hoofing it from the Fort Wayne bus station to the Pennsy depot where I'd board a train to Chicago so I could visit the big city while staying with my brother Steve and his wife while he was going to grad school at Northwestern and she was teaching.
In retrospect, it was the kind of adventure you wouldn't expect a kid to attempt today, but it was a ball.
The train depot, however, looked little like the image in the recent photograph. It was cold. It was dirty. It was scarier in its own way than Chicago, because it had a sense of having been abandoned, as if it had been given up on.
But the recent photo showed what it could be, showed it the way it was when it was new.
And I soon found myself wondering about high-speed rail to Chicago.
Imagine how cool it would be to drive just an hour and get on a super-quick train to that city and its wonders, its sights and its museums.
And then I found myself wishing I were a kid again, ready for the journey, ready for adventure.
All aboard.[[In-content Ad]]
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