Segment 3: Chicago, IL To Galesburg, IL On Amtrak's California Zephyr

   After leaving Roosevelt Avenue, I had a quick brownie sundae at the local Baskin Robins located at the corner of Canal St. and Roosevelt Ave. At Union Station, I had lunch in the McDonald’s inside the station which was decorated nicely with Railroad Memorabilia on the walls. I then went to get my luggage and wait at South Gate C for the boarding of the California Zephyr. When I got there, they were boarding Senior Citizens and Family Members first, us “regular folks” had to wait. At about 2:00pm, we were allowed to board, I took my luggage into the first Superliner Coach where I put everything in the overhead rack, then ran back outside to the platform to take down car numbers for this train. The consist for today's train is shown at the bottom of this page.
   We left Chicago on time at 2:20pm, our next stop would be in Naperville, IL, as soon as we left Union Station, we turned West onto the BNSF Chicago Subdivision which is a 3 track mainline that makes up the East end of the BNSF Transcontinental Line that originates in Los Angeles, CA. There was plenty of action in the yards we passed by, after we made our stop in Naperville, IL, things started spreading out as we now headed out into the heartland, cornfields from as far as the eye can see and a few big farm houses scattered about. I spent this part of the trip just enjoying the scenery as we made our next stop in Princeton, IL with my stop in Galesburg coming up. We had a few slow orders between Naperville and Princeton as well as at least one stop signal that set us back, by the time we arrived in Galesburg, we were running 21 minutes late as we arrived at 5:18pm. After I got off the train, I immediately photographed every car in the train and had a quick conversation with the conductor about my “mission” to photograph every car and engine that Amtrak owns, I’m sure I’ll never reach that goal but it’s something to at least try for!
   I noticed the Galesburg Railroad Museum that is located next to the station, there is a former CB&Q 4-6-4 Hudson Steamer on display there along with some other great historical pieces as well. I then made a huge mistake of walking over to my hotel, the Ramada Inn in Galesburg. This was a mistake because the way the map looked on MapQuest, this hotel was maybe 1000 feet from the station, this of course turned out to be more like over half a mile, and with probably 75 pounds of baggage, that was a bit too much to have to drag that distance, Thank goodness for Advil!!!!
   I checked into the hotel which had a king sized bed, the room was a bit warm so I turned on the AC to cool things down a bit. I decided to then go downstairs to the 24 hour restaurant that was in the hotel, I had an order of Chicken Fingers & French Fries that was halfway decent, but nothing like what we have back home in Buffalo! After dinner, I went back upstairs to the room, plugged in my computer and found out quickly that there wasn’t an access number in Galesburg that would work with NetZero! Thus, I ended up not going on the internet because I didn’t feel like paying for the long-distance charges! Because I was extremely tired, I ended up going to bed and would sleep for about 10 hours!!! And so ends a very productive day...

Amtrak's California Zephyr - Monday, September 27th, 2004 - 68 Axles
Number:	Car/Engine Type:	Name:	Description:
132	P42DC		Power
167	P42DC		Power
1718	Heritage Baggage		Baggage Car
39011	Superliner II Transition Sleeper		Crew Sleeper
34082	Superliner I Coach		Coach
35009	Superliner I Snack Coach		Coach
31036	Superliner I Coach/Baggage		Coach
33033	Superliner I Sightseer Lounge		Cafe/Lounge Car
38000	Superliner I Dining Car		Dining Car
32054	Superliner I Sleeping Car		Sleeping Car
32023	Superliner I Sleeping Car		Sleeping Car
?????	ExpressTrak Reefers (3)		Reefer Cars
?????	Box Cars (3)		Box Cars