Amtrak Pere Marquette "PGA Special" - a more relaxing trip to Michigan's Twin Cities
As I've written before, the way Amtrak's Pere Marquette route is currently set up is kind of limiting. A train travels from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Chicago in the morning (stopping at several cities in western Michigan along the way) and heads back toward Grand Rapids in the evening. Which is great if you're in Michigan, but if you are in Chicago and you want to travel to Michigan, there's basically no way to take a train there without an overnight stay in a hotel. At least most of the time. For the past few years, Amtrak and Michigan Department of Transportation have paid for an extra "Thanksgiving Special" train that runs on Thanksgiving Eve and the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend, leaving Chicago in the morning and heading back to Chicago in the evening. But Thanksgiving weekend is usually Amtrak's busiest travel period (even busier then Christmas, for some reason), so it's easier to justify paying for an extra train.
So I was very surprised when, while looking for something else entirely, I discovered that Amtrak and MDOT are running a few special Pere Marquette trains on May 5, May 12 and May 26. The first two were to accommodate passengers traveling to Holland, Michigan's annual flower festival in Holland, Michigan and the last one is to take riders to Senior PGA golf championship on the golf course in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
The first two were no-goes, because, at the time I discovered this, a few paychecks were running late and I didn't really have a money to spare, but by May 12, I got some delayed paychecks, plus some extra money from that Curbed Chicago article. I decided to go for it, because I could afford it and, honestly, because I don't whether I'd ever have an opportunity to take a train there during a warm-weather month ever again.
I've been to St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Michigan's Twin Cities, two times before. I wrote about my first visit back in 2015, but I never got an opportunity to write, or even upload photos of the 2017 visit. It was a logical choice, because St. Joseph is the closest stop to Chicago, so there is more time between trains. And, for the train I dubbed the "PGA Special" it was the only choice, since it didn't go further then Benton Harbor.
Normally, the train stops at St. Joseph, so if you want to go to Benton Harbor, you either take a bus or walk. But, because this trip was set up specifically for the tournament, the train made an extra stop near the golf course.
(As it would turn out, this map was actually wrong. The stop was quite a bit further east. Basically, look on the map and look to the right of the stop. The street that's crossing the railroad tracks a bit further away? That's where the train stopped. More on that later).
The Thanksgiving Special trains usually leave Chicago in 10:00 AM. This one left Chicago at 7:00 AM, so it can arrive at the golf course at 10:20 EST (9:20 CST). Which meant that I had to get up pretty early.
When I got to the Chicago Union Station, I saw a line so long it extended all the way out of the south boarding lounge. For a moment, I thought it was for the PGA Special, but it quickly turned out that, no, it was for the Chicago-to-St. Louis Lincoln Service train. The crowd waiting for the Special was much, much smaller. As in there were 16 people. Including yours truly. All waiting to board a train that could hold 200 people.
So it would turn out, Whirlpool (which, as you may recall from my previous St. Joseph/Benton Harbor posts, is an appliance company that still has its headquarters there seemingly because they're sentimental and because it gives them a kind of leverage they wouldn't get in a bigger city) bought its employees 50 tickets. The number of employees that actually took advantage could be counted on fingers of a single hand.
In a bit of stars aligning that would seem contrived if this was fiction, I wound up sitting one row from a Michigan state representative, his wife and a Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning president. It turned out that they were friends, and they wound up having a lively discussion with the Amtrak's Midwest customer service rep about what went wrong.
Turned out that Amtrak, MDOT and PGA didn't hammer out the details of the special trip until literally a few weeks before the championship. Which meant that they couldn't really do much advertising ahead of time. It didn't help that unlike, say, Amtrak's special eclipse train, it wasn't advertised on Amtrak's front page. Everyone agreed that they really should have done way more advertising in Chicago area. And they touched on how finding the link to the trip wasn't easy - a major Whirlpool executive apparently had trouble figuring out how to get the tickets which, they all agreed, was a symptom that something went wrong.
(incidentally, it turned out that, like me, CMAP president found out about the trip by accident. Apparently, he has a dacha in a village near St. Joseph. He was planning to take the May 25 train, but it sold out, and, when he tried to find an alternative, he was surprised to discover that there was an extra train the following morning.)
One upside of having so few people on the train was that the conductor could talk to each and every single passenger and make sure they knew exactly which stop they should get off at and, for those returning, how they should get back on.
When we arrived in St. Joseph, I finally got to see what Silver Beach looks like when there's grass and warm weather.
And I discovered something I never suspected. I knew Whilpool Splashpad was, well, a splashpad during the summer, but I had no idea that, once every fifteen minutes, the water cannons turned on, and you got this.
Then, I got to cross the St. Joseph River on the train for the first time.
And we got to see bits of the Harbor Shores golf course.
Before we arrived at our final destination - a road crossing where PGA volinteers welcomed passengers with smiles, brochures and complimentary tickets.
I got a complimentary ticket, too - because they assumed everybody who would get out at the golf course was here for the tournament and because they were expecting at least 50 people.
As the train was taken a few meters away to wait for the return trip, I did seriously consider using the unexpected ticket.
I actually went as far as the entrance - but then I discovered that cameras and laptops weren't allowed inside
I mean, I could check them in, but going to an event for a sport I wasn't interested in and not being able to take pictures didn't appeal to me.
So I decided to head toward downtown Benton Harbor.
I soon realized that the place we were dropped at was literally minutes away from downtown.
Come to think about it, it's pretty convenient. Just as St. Joseph station is a pretty good gateway to downtown St. Joseph, a permanent station at the location would be his would be a good gateway to Benton Harbor.
My first stop was Phoenix Coffeeshop. When I was there last Thanksgiving Eve, it literally just opened for business (in a space that used to belong to a cafe).
The owner didn't have his cash register set up yet, not any place to keep cash, so he just gave me a cup of tea for free. I figured it was only fair that I order a tea and a sandwich this time around.
(Well, it was supposed to be a sandwich. Their bread delivery guy didn't show up, so they improvised)
I have to say - I liked what they've done with the place since the last time I was there.
After that... I was originally going to check out the Benton Harbor library, but as I approached the library, I heard the noise coming from up where the city hall/police/fire station was. And, sure enough, there was a rally
Because I came in at the second half, I'm not 100% sure what it was about. But the best I could gather, they were protesting the fact that Whirlpool used public land to build the private Harbor Shores golf course - something that has been a point of contention in Benton Harbor for a while - and the Senior PGA Championship was a good opportunity to reinforce that it's not like most of Benton Harbor benefited from it.
I mean, some of the downtown Benton Harbor and downtown St. Joseph businesses clearly benefited, since there were many customers who were clearly from out of town... But if you look at most of Benton Harbor, I could see their point.
Plus, there were obviously some other grievances at Berrien County justice system, and other local controversies
After the rally, the group marched toward Harbor Shores golf course entrance. But, because, frankly, I was on as close to a vacation as I get those days, I decided that I cover enough protests already, and I could let this one go.
After a stop at Benton Harbor library
I walked around the downtown area some more. Thing is, while there are some new businesses and businesses that survived for a few years in downtown Benton Harbor, there are plenty of vacant lots and empty storefronts as well.
And past that... As one business owner I spoke to put it, there isn't really much investment. And, to be clear, she thought it was unfair.
This commercial space on the side street near downtown seems to have different tenants every time I visit.
The best way to get to St. Joseph from downtown Benton Harbor is to walk along Main Street. And yes, that's its name in both cities. Because I took a lot of photos of it last two times, I didn't want to repeat myself too much... So here's a furnishings store set up inside a former garage along State Street. It definitely wasn't there back in 2015.
After crossing St. Joseph River
And onto the St. Joseph side, which the business owner I mentioned earlier sarcastically called the land of sunshine and rainbows.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, they put up custom-painted snowmen. Turned out that, during the summer - at leas this summer - they're putting up knights and dragons (and castles)
In what has become my Visiting St. Joseph tradition, I stopped by the city's Biggby Coffee location - part of a chain that's pretty ubiquitous in Michigan but completely unknown in Illinois. Then, after stopped by a nice community garden
I went to St. Joseph's Maud Preston Palenske Memorial Library
Which, as I mentioned in the last post, has a pretty nifty reading room
And a gallery
(And yes - Benton Harbor library has nothing like that - though it does have a pretty cool reference/archives room)
After that, I walked around downtown St. Joseph. One big advantage of the train that arrived in the Twin Cities hours earlier then than the Thanksgiving Special is that, for the first time, I didn't feel like I was rushing to squeeze in as much as possible. I could just walk around and take in everything I saw
Like, there is a local independent bookstore that I was only able to check out for 5 minutes back in 2017. This time, I got a chance to do some browsing.
Say what you will about the Twin Cities, but downtown St. Joseph has many interesting businesses.
Then, I heared toward the Silver Beach
Passing by St. Joseph station, where girls were playing on the railroad tracks 80 minutes before the returning train was scheduled to come through.
I got a closer look at he splashpad in action.
Then, the fountains suddenly stopped
To signal that water cannons wee about to kick in (the following image is acutally a video, but see my Victory Day post for a shpiel about how Flickr videos no longer embed properly on LJ, so you have to click on the image to watch the video)
And here are some images
Then, I went to the beach itself.
Because, even though all of the Chicago area newpapers and TV stations have been warning people that, even if the temperatures were hot, Lake Michigan water was too cold to swim in safely, I was determined to at least get my feet wet.
Which I did
After that... It was 50 minutes until the return PGA Special was scheduled to arrive. Unlike at the Thankgsviging Special trians, they dind't have a cafe car, so buying a dinner on the train wasn't an option. Some business owners in benton Harbor suggested Silver Beach Pizza, which shared the building with the station... But then, I saw the lines at the takeout window and decided against that. Instead, I went to a Mediterranian fast food place I saw while walking around downtown... Only to be confronted with the fact that they were cash-only I didn't have enouch cash for a gyro sandwich I wanted.
I was going to try to find something cheaper, but the owner insisted that it was okay, and he would give me a "50% discount" - in other words, about what I had in my wallet. And I have to say, the gyro was way larger then anything I've seen in Chicago. I could understand why he charged almost $10 for it
After that, I just sat at the station and ate my gyro, waiting for the train to arrive
And after taking one last look at St. Joseph, we were off to Chicago.
Given how many people wound up riding the PGA Special, I'm not sure whether there will be another one - so I'm all the more glad I was able to take it. I got to see the Twin Cities during the warm weather, which I didn't think was ever going to happen. And, as I said earlier, because the train arrived earlier and left later, I got to see both cities (well, both downtowns, really) in more detail than I ever had before, while feeling much more relax. If it weren't for the 90 F heat, it would have been perfect.
Oh, and I might have picked up a possible article or two. But I won't reveal more here lest I jinx it.
Stay tuned.
So I was very surprised when, while looking for something else entirely, I discovered that Amtrak and MDOT are running a few special Pere Marquette trains on May 5, May 12 and May 26. The first two were to accommodate passengers traveling to Holland, Michigan's annual flower festival in Holland, Michigan and the last one is to take riders to Senior PGA golf championship on the golf course in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
The first two were no-goes, because, at the time I discovered this, a few paychecks were running late and I didn't really have a money to spare, but by May 12, I got some delayed paychecks, plus some extra money from that Curbed Chicago article. I decided to go for it, because I could afford it and, honestly, because I don't whether I'd ever have an opportunity to take a train there during a warm-weather month ever again.
I've been to St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Michigan's Twin Cities, two times before. I wrote about my first visit back in 2015, but I never got an opportunity to write, or even upload photos of the 2017 visit. It was a logical choice, because St. Joseph is the closest stop to Chicago, so there is more time between trains. And, for the train I dubbed the "PGA Special" it was the only choice, since it didn't go further then Benton Harbor.
Normally, the train stops at St. Joseph, so if you want to go to Benton Harbor, you either take a bus or walk. But, because this trip was set up specifically for the tournament, the train made an extra stop near the golf course.
(As it would turn out, this map was actually wrong. The stop was quite a bit further east. Basically, look on the map and look to the right of the stop. The street that's crossing the railroad tracks a bit further away? That's where the train stopped. More on that later).
The Thanksgiving Special trains usually leave Chicago in 10:00 AM. This one left Chicago at 7:00 AM, so it can arrive at the golf course at 10:20 EST (9:20 CST). Which meant that I had to get up pretty early.
When I got to the Chicago Union Station, I saw a line so long it extended all the way out of the south boarding lounge. For a moment, I thought it was for the PGA Special, but it quickly turned out that, no, it was for the Chicago-to-St. Louis Lincoln Service train. The crowd waiting for the Special was much, much smaller. As in there were 16 people. Including yours truly. All waiting to board a train that could hold 200 people.
So it would turn out, Whirlpool (which, as you may recall from my previous St. Joseph/Benton Harbor posts, is an appliance company that still has its headquarters there seemingly because they're sentimental and because it gives them a kind of leverage they wouldn't get in a bigger city) bought its employees 50 tickets. The number of employees that actually took advantage could be counted on fingers of a single hand.
In a bit of stars aligning that would seem contrived if this was fiction, I wound up sitting one row from a Michigan state representative, his wife and a Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning president. It turned out that they were friends, and they wound up having a lively discussion with the Amtrak's Midwest customer service rep about what went wrong.
Turned out that Amtrak, MDOT and PGA didn't hammer out the details of the special trip until literally a few weeks before the championship. Which meant that they couldn't really do much advertising ahead of time. It didn't help that unlike, say, Amtrak's special eclipse train, it wasn't advertised on Amtrak's front page. Everyone agreed that they really should have done way more advertising in Chicago area. And they touched on how finding the link to the trip wasn't easy - a major Whirlpool executive apparently had trouble figuring out how to get the tickets which, they all agreed, was a symptom that something went wrong.
(incidentally, it turned out that, like me, CMAP president found out about the trip by accident. Apparently, he has a dacha in a village near St. Joseph. He was planning to take the May 25 train, but it sold out, and, when he tried to find an alternative, he was surprised to discover that there was an extra train the following morning.)
One upside of having so few people on the train was that the conductor could talk to each and every single passenger and make sure they knew exactly which stop they should get off at and, for those returning, how they should get back on.
When we arrived in St. Joseph, I finally got to see what Silver Beach looks like when there's grass and warm weather.
And I discovered something I never suspected. I knew Whilpool Splashpad was, well, a splashpad during the summer, but I had no idea that, once every fifteen minutes, the water cannons turned on, and you got this.
Then, I got to cross the St. Joseph River on the train for the first time.
And we got to see bits of the Harbor Shores golf course.
Before we arrived at our final destination - a road crossing where PGA volinteers welcomed passengers with smiles, brochures and complimentary tickets.
I got a complimentary ticket, too - because they assumed everybody who would get out at the golf course was here for the tournament and because they were expecting at least 50 people.
As the train was taken a few meters away to wait for the return trip, I did seriously consider using the unexpected ticket.
I actually went as far as the entrance - but then I discovered that cameras and laptops weren't allowed inside
I mean, I could check them in, but going to an event for a sport I wasn't interested in and not being able to take pictures didn't appeal to me.
So I decided to head toward downtown Benton Harbor.
I soon realized that the place we were dropped at was literally minutes away from downtown.
Come to think about it, it's pretty convenient. Just as St. Joseph station is a pretty good gateway to downtown St. Joseph, a permanent station at the location would be his would be a good gateway to Benton Harbor.
My first stop was Phoenix Coffeeshop. When I was there last Thanksgiving Eve, it literally just opened for business (in a space that used to belong to a cafe).
The owner didn't have his cash register set up yet, not any place to keep cash, so he just gave me a cup of tea for free. I figured it was only fair that I order a tea and a sandwich this time around.
(Well, it was supposed to be a sandwich. Their bread delivery guy didn't show up, so they improvised)
I have to say - I liked what they've done with the place since the last time I was there.
After that... I was originally going to check out the Benton Harbor library, but as I approached the library, I heard the noise coming from up where the city hall/police/fire station was. And, sure enough, there was a rally
Because I came in at the second half, I'm not 100% sure what it was about. But the best I could gather, they were protesting the fact that Whirlpool used public land to build the private Harbor Shores golf course - something that has been a point of contention in Benton Harbor for a while - and the Senior PGA Championship was a good opportunity to reinforce that it's not like most of Benton Harbor benefited from it.
I mean, some of the downtown Benton Harbor and downtown St. Joseph businesses clearly benefited, since there were many customers who were clearly from out of town... But if you look at most of Benton Harbor, I could see their point.
Plus, there were obviously some other grievances at Berrien County justice system, and other local controversies
After the rally, the group marched toward Harbor Shores golf course entrance. But, because, frankly, I was on as close to a vacation as I get those days, I decided that I cover enough protests already, and I could let this one go.
After a stop at Benton Harbor library
I walked around the downtown area some more. Thing is, while there are some new businesses and businesses that survived for a few years in downtown Benton Harbor, there are plenty of vacant lots and empty storefronts as well.
And past that... As one business owner I spoke to put it, there isn't really much investment. And, to be clear, she thought it was unfair.
This commercial space on the side street near downtown seems to have different tenants every time I visit.
The best way to get to St. Joseph from downtown Benton Harbor is to walk along Main Street. And yes, that's its name in both cities. Because I took a lot of photos of it last two times, I didn't want to repeat myself too much... So here's a furnishings store set up inside a former garage along State Street. It definitely wasn't there back in 2015.
After crossing St. Joseph River
And onto the St. Joseph side, which the business owner I mentioned earlier sarcastically called the land of sunshine and rainbows.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, they put up custom-painted snowmen. Turned out that, during the summer - at leas this summer - they're putting up knights and dragons (and castles)
In what has become my Visiting St. Joseph tradition, I stopped by the city's Biggby Coffee location - part of a chain that's pretty ubiquitous in Michigan but completely unknown in Illinois. Then, after stopped by a nice community garden
I went to St. Joseph's Maud Preston Palenske Memorial Library
Which, as I mentioned in the last post, has a pretty nifty reading room
And a gallery
(And yes - Benton Harbor library has nothing like that - though it does have a pretty cool reference/archives room)
After that, I walked around downtown St. Joseph. One big advantage of the train that arrived in the Twin Cities hours earlier then than the Thanksgiving Special is that, for the first time, I didn't feel like I was rushing to squeeze in as much as possible. I could just walk around and take in everything I saw
Like, there is a local independent bookstore that I was only able to check out for 5 minutes back in 2017. This time, I got a chance to do some browsing.
Say what you will about the Twin Cities, but downtown St. Joseph has many interesting businesses.
Then, I heared toward the Silver Beach
Passing by St. Joseph station, where girls were playing on the railroad tracks 80 minutes before the returning train was scheduled to come through.
I got a closer look at he splashpad in action.
Then, the fountains suddenly stopped
To signal that water cannons wee about to kick in (the following image is acutally a video, but see my Victory Day post for a shpiel about how Flickr videos no longer embed properly on LJ, so you have to click on the image to watch the video)
And here are some images
Then, I went to the beach itself.
Because, even though all of the Chicago area newpapers and TV stations have been warning people that, even if the temperatures were hot, Lake Michigan water was too cold to swim in safely, I was determined to at least get my feet wet.
Which I did
After that... It was 50 minutes until the return PGA Special was scheduled to arrive. Unlike at the Thankgsviging Special trians, they dind't have a cafe car, so buying a dinner on the train wasn't an option. Some business owners in benton Harbor suggested Silver Beach Pizza, which shared the building with the station... But then, I saw the lines at the takeout window and decided against that. Instead, I went to a Mediterranian fast food place I saw while walking around downtown... Only to be confronted with the fact that they were cash-only I didn't have enouch cash for a gyro sandwich I wanted.
I was going to try to find something cheaper, but the owner insisted that it was okay, and he would give me a "50% discount" - in other words, about what I had in my wallet. And I have to say, the gyro was way larger then anything I've seen in Chicago. I could understand why he charged almost $10 for it
After that, I just sat at the station and ate my gyro, waiting for the train to arrive
And after taking one last look at St. Joseph, we were off to Chicago.
Given how many people wound up riding the PGA Special, I'm not sure whether there will be another one - so I'm all the more glad I was able to take it. I got to see the Twin Cities during the warm weather, which I didn't think was ever going to happen. And, as I said earlier, because the train arrived earlier and left later, I got to see both cities (well, both downtowns, really) in more detail than I ever had before, while feeling much more relax. If it weren't for the 90 F heat, it would have been perfect.
Oh, and I might have picked up a possible article or two. But I won't reveal more here lest I jinx it.
Stay tuned.