Reagan's Travel and Photo Galleries Update Blog: Galesburg Road Trip

Here Comes the Train

Galesburg Road Trip - Two Days Watching Trains in Galesburg - I'm writing this blog update back in Champaign after two great days train watching in Galesburg, IL. I was up early Tuesday(4/28) morning to drive to Galesburg from Champaign. Arrived about 10:30 AM and enjoyed meeting the eastbound California Zephyr and Southwest Chief nearing the end of their journey to Chicago. Later I met the westbound trains - the California Zephyr bound for Emeryville/San Francisco and the Southwest Chief bound for Los Angeles. Took lots of photos so narrowing the selection down for this blog was difficult. Probably the highlight of the day Tuesday was meeting Maury G the President of the Galesburg Railroad Museum located at the Amtrak station. Lots of great conversation. He gave me a personal tour of the old steam engine and other cars including an old Pullman car and a Railway Postal Express car. He also told me about lots of people from the Galesburg area doing what he called a "breakfast run" on the regional Amtrak Carl Sanburg trains. Yep, I liked the idea and did do that breakfast run this morning Wednesday(4/29). What is the breakfast run? Well, you take the 7:38 AM train to the next stop toward Chicago which is Kewanee, IL. You arrive at 8:07 AM and walk next door to the station to a restaurant named the Station Inn to eat breakfast and then walk back to the station and catch the 9:44 AM west bound train back to Galesburg arriving 10:14 AM. Thanks to Maury for alerting me to this opportunity. It was a great way to earn "double" Amtrak Guest Rewards points.

Traveling I-74 to and from Galesburg was quite easy and traffic was much lighter than traveling I-40 through Tennessee or I-20 through Louisiana. What a pleasure to be traveling in dry sunny days this whole week.

Today's excitement -- I've learned not to panic when I encounter "bumps" while traveling so today's "bump" thankfully ended up being more an embarrassment instead of a problem. Most of you know that I have an i-Phone which I use more while traveling than at home. Today I was using the Passbook app to store and show my e-ticket to the conductor on the train and all went well traveling from Galesburg to Kewanee. But when I got off the train and went to eat breakfast I pulled out my phone to check for email and the i-Phone was "dead". In no way could I nor the very helpful waitress get it to come back to life. Honestly, this has never happened to me. Fortunately, the conductor had my name on his passenger manifest so no problem getting back to Galesburg and my car. Chatted briefly with Maury G and he directed me to the Verizon store in Galesburg. Oh the embarrassment when I entered Verizon and the very polite representative simply held both the "on off button" and "home button" down at the same time doing what she called are hard reboot. Problem solved. I am admitting that I totally forgot about doing a "hard reboot" since I don't remember having to do one before on my two year old phone. Verizon rep said the phone shuts down like mine did this morning if I have not turned it off and rebooted in a while. At least I now know what to do if it happens again.

One more day train experiencing. Tomorrow Thursday(4/30) I will be riding the Illini/Saluki trains to Chicago and back from Champaign. I begin my journey back home to Nashville Friday stopping again in Metropolis, IL. I plan to do another blog update Friday evening.

Here are some of the photos I took these past two days. They are only a small sampling of the photos I will be posting to my photo gallery website after I return home to Nashville.

Maury G of the Galesburg Railroad Museum

Eastbound California Zephyr arriving in Galesburg

Same California Zephyr departing

Eastbound Southwest Chief in Galesburg

Westbound Zephyr arriving Galesburg from Chicago

Sleeper passengers enjoying a fresh air break
I done this several time on past train trips

Lot of utility construction work going on at the Galesburg station

Westbound Southwest Chief

Abraham Lincoln Statue at the Galesburg Amtrak Station

Wednesday Morning "Breakfast Run" to Kewanee, IL

Illinois has some very scenic Interstate Rest Areas

Back in Champaign
That's the train I will be traveling to and from Chicago tomorrow

You can click on any of the small photos in this blog to open a full size photo. Also, click on the "blog title" at the top to view this blog on the web.

All my photos are available to view on Reagan's Photo Galleries website.

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Galesburg Road Trip - Two Days Watching Trains in Galesburg