Urbs in Horto

I have always liked trains.

You and me both Mr. Beagles and I wonder if it's related to growing up in Chicago.  There was no escaping the trains, especially before the arrival of the interstates and superhighways.  Even today, since so many train crossings are at street level as you go further west, it's likely that you will have to stop and wait for some mile-long freight train to make it's way through the city.  As a child, sitting in a car with no radio, it became a guessing game, wondering what was in all those boxcars, tank cars, coal cars (coal, duh!). and cattle cars.  Flat cars were easy, this was before shipping containers were used so the cargo was out in the open in front of god and everybody.   Once I saw a bunch of army tanks which was a very cool sight to my ten year-old eyes.

With so much of our extended family living in Wisconsin we made plenty of trips on the Chicago and Northwestern line during some winter holidays.  In those days driving to northern Wisconsin in the winter was simply out of the question; it was all two lane roads and you couldn't predict whether or not the roads were plowed.  The train we took was the Flambeau 400, which ran from Chicago to Ashland, via Green Bay.  I don't know if it was considered posh but I recall a couple of trips in a passenger compartment and some meals in the dining car.  It was a bumpy ride and I spilled my drinks more than once but it was still a good experience.

One thing I'll never forget was the restroom situation.  They were tiny compartments and the I think the toilets flushed directly on the tracks.  It seemed that way; to flush you had to press on a floor lever and you could see a little trap door open and the noise of the train got a lot louder.  That's something you should about when you are walking along the tracks and a passenger train goes whizzing by, but maybe things are different today.

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Chicago is an Urbs in Horto, indeed.  I've gotten used to the proliferation of rabbits but this weekend I read about something new: a wild turkey roaming in my neck of the woods, a little more than a mile east of me.  I'll have to keep my eyes open and maybe check to see if they're in season.