Chicago Christmas Shopping
The Day after Thanksgiving, 1972

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Arriving at Fort Wayne's former Pennsylvania Railroad Station on Baker Street

Fairly busy waiting room and ticket window

The train's arrival has been announced, and we head for the platform

No yellow line to stand behind

Here it is!

Breakfast in the diner

Go to the lounge for coffee and scrounge an abandoned newspaper. The passenger on the right has a Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, the morning paper.

And back to my coach seat for the remainder of the ride.

Arriving at Chicago Union Station on Amtrak. Still a few privately-owned steam locomotives sitting around. The one with the silver-painted boiler is a Heisler geared locomotive. Those typically were used where pulling power and the ability to operate effectively over rough, uneven track were valued but speed wasn't, like logging and quarrying.

The architectural travesty for which the classic passenger concourse was razed in the late 1960s

Marshall Field, traditionally decorated for the season

Shoppers throng State Street

Michigan Avenue

Commerce on the river

Back to Union Station and Amtrak to Fort Wayne

This is almost ten years before the Superliners went into service. The bi-level cars are former Santa Fe.

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