The Lake Shore Limited: New York City to Chicago

Following the routes of one of the most famous trains of the last century, the Lake Shore Limited makes an overnight trip from New York to Chicago in 18 hours, drawing more than 350,000 riders annually. Though the route via Albany, Buffalo and Cleveland seems circuitous on a map, geographically it makes sense.

New York Central’s Twentieth Century Limited followed this route from 1902 through 1967 and was dubbed “the Water Level Route, so you can sleep,” distinguishing itself from the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited, which jostled riders through the hills of Pennsylvania as it made its way from New York City to Chicago.

In 1938, the Twentieth Century Limited made the trip in 15 hours, leaving New York City at 6 pm and arriving in Chicago at 9 am. Today’s trip takes 4 hours longer, running from 3:40 pm to 9:45 am.

While browsing old train menus, schedules and other ephemera at an antique fair in the spring of 2015, I decided to make this trip over the summer. When my family planned a birthday party for my soon-to-be 89-year-old great uncle in late July, I seized the opportunity and booked a one-way trip to Chicago. I then immersed myself in the history of this route and relived memories from my previous cross-country train travels. I re-read my old travel journals, flipped through photos from my trips and ordered on eBay Lake Shore Limited timetables from the 1920s and 40s.

The history is fascinating but for me, the allure of train travel has always been about the present, not just the scenery rolling by, but the people I meet along the way. Train riders are more social than airline passengers, and generally more colorful.

This trip started off no different.

At the window opposite me, a middle aged woman with glasses, blond hair pulled back in a pony tail and an inside-out gray sweatshirt looked back at a passenger behind her and said, “I’ll be writing my thesis on this train,” and then paused, expecting the listener to respond in disbelief. “I really am. I’m finishing my thesis on this trip.”

An unsuspecting woman took a seat next to her, and the thesis writer began to talk: New York Times writers had stolen all her ideas, all her research. People had become billionaires off her work. She was once worth $70 million, and now it was all gone. This is communism. She never gets to see Obama, but she drops things off with his friends. She has spoken on the phone with Al Gore.

She talked nonstop to Albany, offering her poor seat mate a bracelet along the way.

In the meantime, I enjoyed a plate of cheese, olives and crackers, along with some chilled Chardonnay that I drank discreetly through a bottle of Vitamin Water (unless you’re in a sleeper, Amtrak prohibits the consumption of alcohol not purchased in the snack car).

Albany offered not just a let up from her talking, but also an opportunity to step off the train for about 45 minutes. The station is clean and pleasant but, built in 2002, it is neither historic nor architecturally interesting. Across the street from the station, though, I found June’s Restaurant, a small tavern that caters to train goers. I had a Jameson’s on the rocks, chatted with the kind bartender who carded me and wished me a happy almost-birthday, and headed back to the station.

After Albany, the Lake Shore Limited crosses the Hudson and begins its trek West, running along the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, through Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo — the latter cities under the cover of darkness. A graduate student from Buffalo sat next to me, until it was time for me to walk several cars forward for my dining car reservation.

After waiting a good 15 minutes for a table, I enjoyed a steak, baked potato and veggies in the dining car between Utica and Syracuse. The ride here was rough, prompting me to grab a quick hold of my half bottle of Cabernet a few times to keep it from falling over. Others at the next table did the same — and we had a good cross-table laugh over it — as we finished our meals and approached Syracuse.

Back at my seat, I found that I had an empty seat next to me, giving me more room to stretch and sleep. The conductor told me we would have a lot of passengers boarding at Toledo, which wouldn’t come until almost 6 am — plenty of time for me to sleep. With the help of some NyQuil, I dozed on an off, waking for most stops — Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo, where we could step off and stretch a bit as the sun rose over the modest skyline. In between those stops though, the train moved at a brisk pace, making good time along the shore of Lake Erie.

I had been looking forward to a good glimpse of Lake Erie just beyond Sandusky, but the sky only offered the faintest hint of light at that point in the journey, enough for me to see the lake, but not enough for a decent photo. The fiery pink sunrise wouldn’t come until closer to Toledo. It was 5 am, and weird as it may sound, I began to think of the small package of Roquefort packed in ice in my bag. Surely it wouldn’t survive the 90+ temperatures of Chicago. I dug it out of my bag, along with crackers and the last bits of truffle honey, and enjoyed a pre-dawn European breakfast as we crossed the farmland of the Midwest.

After Toledo, the rising sun illuminated large stretches of farms, interrupted only by occasional barns, grain silos and empty roads.

Though the Roquefort breakfast had filled me, I still wanted to eat in the dining car. When I finally did, I was seated with a woman from Rochester who was en route to visit her daughter in Chicago. Having grown up on a farm in downstate Chicago, she could identify many of the crops we passed by and how close they were to harvesting. I talked about my recent trip through Rochester, stopping for lunch and a ride on a historic carousel on a cold and rainy June Saturday.

As we approached Chicago, farmland gave way first to suburbia, and then to industry that reminded me of the port areas around Newark Bay.

The train slowed to a lurching crawl, and I monitored our progress on Google Maps, waiting for the moment when we would have a good view of Lake Michigan.

Soon we were in the city of Chicago, and an attendant was picking up trash. I played Sinatra’s My Kind of Town over and over, the sound blasting in my headphones. I wanted to unplug the headphones so that everyone could share in my excitement: “Why I just grin like a clown, it’s myyyyyyyy kiiiiiind of town.”

Before I knew it, we were in Union Station, where 16 Amtrak routes converge.

My first rail experiences were on the giant, two-level Amtrak Superliners, but not having been on one in 12 years, I was amazed by the immensity of the Superliner that sat on the track opposite the single-level Lake Shore Limited. That train would soon be on its way to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles or New Orleans. Seeing it there on the tracks, knowing that it would soon be chugging its way though the vast western plains made me want to hop aboard one in the near future.

In the meantime, I was looking forward to the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s 90-minute river cruise and a good weekend with my family.