Under McCormick Place

Ah, I knew I had pictures of the Chicago trains somewhere. Here's a shot of the train approaching the station under McCormick Place from March 2008. No doubt that poor engineer wondered why some tourist was pointing a camera at him. The line I rode in Chicago was all on the ground or under it. I didn't get a chance to ride the elevated trains, but I did get some pictures...

Metro

I just love taking pictures of subways. I don't know why, I just do. I think it has something to do with the fact that we don't have such things here in Florida, or at least they didn't when I was little. Closest thing we had was the Monorail at Disney, and I LOVED that thing. This is the Metro train deep under the National Mall in Washington DC. Those round red lights along the platform beside the car start to flash when the train is approaching the station, and they look really cool when the train is flying by. I always thought it was going too fast to stop, but at the last minute they slam on the brakes and the train stops in exactly the right place on the platform. It's as if they've done it once or twice. Let me see, what other subways have I shown you? NYC and Chicago, I think. Looks like I didn't post any pictures of the Chicago trains, but I know I shot some. Don't know if I took any pictures on the public trains in Atlanta, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Cleveland or San Francisco. Maybe next time.

Don't Sleep In The Subway

When I was in NYC last fall around September 11th, I took the subway just about everywhere that I didn't walk. I'll admit that I was nervous about it at first, but after riding the commuter rails in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago and Cleveland, it wasn't all that bad. I even got a car all to myself one morning (I think it was early Saturday, go figure...), so I was able to take a quick picture. I think it was only empty for a single stop. I was too self-conscious to take any pictures in a car when there was anybody else in there. They must clean these things at night, because this car looks spotless. They can't stay that clean after a long day of service.

Dick Clark?

The very last picture I took during my trip to New York was this mosaic in the Times Square subway station. I thought at the time it was supposed to be Dick Clark, but now I'm not so sure. There were quite a few of these merry New Year's revelers along the wall in the Times Square Station, and it being Dick Clark would make some sense, since he's been hosting the New Year's festivities there for as long as I've been alive. But looking at it now, I think that's just a horn of some sort in his hand, and not the microphone I imagined at first. The sign on the ground is one of dozens that some group had spread along the wall, trying to bring people over to their view of the Bible. I, of course, was more interested in Dick Clark.

Update: The Web is, of course, an amazing place. Go visit this excellent site all about the New York City subway system, where I learned that my non-Dick-Clark mosaic is part of an installation called The Revelers by Jane Dickson.