OFFICIALS have called for the new EES system to be urgently reviewed with some passengers facing three-hour queues at passport control.
The new Entry/Exit system is set to be up and running by April 10, 2026 for non-EU citizens entering theSchengen area – but there has been a concerns due to huge delays at the border.
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New EES systems has caused delays of up to three hours for non-EU citizensCredit: ReutersThe system is set to be completely rolled out in April 2025Credit: Reuters
The new EES system started rolling out from October 12, 2025, in order to replace manual passport stamping with digital checks for non-EU travelers.
It was designed to eventually reduce airport wait times by automating border checks with biometrics.
But reports have recorded waiting times of up to three hours – and many travellers have taken to social media too.
On December 18, one person said about Lanzarote on X: “Landed at 14.30, over 2 hours later still at airport. This new EEs just is working. Hundreds of people in queue then they stamp passports. Ridiculous”.
On the same day, The Portugal Post reported three-hour queues in the arrivals hall at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport due to a glitch with the EES system.
It even added that “officials are now weighing whether to switch the system off altogether during Christmas”.
Earlier in the month, one traveller said: “The new EU Entry/Exit System is off to a great start at Prague Airport, with a 3+ hour queue wrapped around the entire terminal right now.”
The Airports Council International (ACI) in Brussels is calling for an urgent review of theentry-exit system (EES).
ACI has said that the capturing of biometric data from third-country nationals entering the Schengen area has resulted in border control processing times at airports increasing by up to 70 per cent.
The ACI has called for a review of the systemCredit: Reuters
The ACI has said that multiple factors have resulted in delays which include regular EES outages.
It reported persistent EES configuration problems, “including the partial deployment or unavailability of self‑service kiosks used by travelers for registration and biometric data capture”.
There is continued unavailability of Automated Border Control (ABC) gates for EES processing at many airports, and the unavailability of an effective pre-registration app.
Another factor is an insufficient amount of border guards at airports.
Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE warned: “Significant discomfort is already being inflicted upon travelers, and airport operations impacted with the current threshold for registering third country nationals set at only 10 per cent.”
Currently, one in 10 travellers has to go through the digital registration.
But by January 9, 2026, the percentage is due to be raised to 35 per cent.
Mr Jankovec has warned that unless the issues are resolved this “will inevitably result in much more severe congestion and systemic disruption for airports and airlines. This will possibly involve serious safety hazards”.
He added: “We fully understand and support the importance of the EES and remain fully committed to its implementation.
“But the EES cannot be about mayhem for travelers and chaos at our airports. If the current operational issues cannot be addressed and the system stabilised by early January, we will need swift action from the European Commission and Schengen Member States to allow additional flexibility in its roll‑out.”
Amsterdam’s iconic Christmas market serves glühwein, raclette and festive treats just one hour from the UK – it needs to be on your radar this winter.
Amsterdam’s iconic Christmas market serves glühwein, raclette and festive treats just one hour from the UK – it needs to be on your radar this winter(Image: Ellen Jenne)
There’s only so much time to soak up the Christmas spirit before the big day, and despite work and life becoming more hectic than usual, I managed to swap the hustle and bustle of London for Amsterdam. It was my first trip back to the Dutch capital in a decade, with my arrival coinciding with the start of one of the city’s most iconic Christmas markets, reports the Express.
Christmas markets in the UK can be hit or miss, and I must admit, the ones I’ve visited over the years have never quite matched those on the continent. The first time I realised our markets didn’t measure up was just a few years ago when I visited Vienna, which can only be described as Christmas on steroids.
The largest Christmas market in Amsterdam springs up in the shadow of the Rijksmuseum on Museumplein, where you can blend the festive spirit with a visit to some of the city’s most renowned museums and galleries.
We arrived on its opening day, and even though we visited in the evening, we managed to dodge the wall-to-wall crowds. This was something I never experienced in Vienna, and on this occasion, I was extremely grateful for it.
Entry to the market is free, but you’ll have to fork out €16 for the joy of skating on its ice rink. Much like other European markets, Amsterdam’s was adorned with wooden chalets offering everything from knick-knacks to treats, piping hot cups of glühwein and food from all around the world.
There was even a cabin flying the Union Jack selling fudge. Who would have thought that British fudge was such a hit overseas?
No visit to a Christmas market would be complete without trying some of the local specialities. A Dutch wurst is a robust cured pork sausage typically served with stamppot, a blend of mashed potatoes and kale. However, it seemed we had arrived too late. No wursts for us.
So we settled for the next best thing: barbeque jumbo sausages served on toasted slices of bread with pickled onions and gherkins, topped with crispy onions and mayo. This isn’t your average sausage sandwich. Trying to tackle every bite is a mouthful, overflowing with chunks of smoky sausage and crumbly onions.
It was evidently a popular choice, with crowds gathering around the open flame grill right in the heart of the action, with sausages sizzling and emitting a tantalising aroma. A barbeque might not be what you expect in the depths of winter, but blimey, was it needed.
Sadly, the warmth emanating from the grill wasn’t enough to heat our bones while we waited, so two cups of glühwein were called for. Glühwein is traditional German mulled wine, delicately spiced with cinnamon, cloves, star anise.
I’m not entirely certain what the secret is, but somehow the Germans manage to perfectly balance the red wine and spices in a way that all the mulled wine I’ve sampled at UK Christmas markets always seem far too acidic. Glühwein is the ideal beverage to warm you to your core, particularly in a freezing city in December, even if the city is renowned for its beer.
When our sausages finally turned up, they were heaped with pickled onions and gherkins. Much like a Scandi open sandwich, it was bursting with diverse flavours, so unlike any festive fare you’d find back home.
You received an entire jumbo sausage on one slice of bread, quartered to actually fit into your mouth. The smoky pork was wonderfully offset by the sharp tang from the pickles, with a different texture provided by crispy onions. This isn’t your typical Christmas market grub, but it was delightful to sample some local specialities.
However, no Christmas is complete without a generous helping of cheese. A classic choice at European Christmas markets is bubbling, ooey, gooey raclette.
We opted for the traditional pairing of raclette and potatoes. What could be more perfect? The humble new potato smothered in smoky melted cheese.
The cheesy spuds were served with some more crispy onions and a fresh coleslaw. Now this is what Christmas is truly about. I would devour a bucketful of raclette if they’d offered one.
Sausages, glühwein and raclette: the holy trinity of Christmas market food.
Even though it was late at night and the crowds were thinning, there was still a buzz among the youngsters and families huddled around the electric heaters trying to stay warm, sipping from steaming cups, welcoming the festive season. Compared to Vienna, Amsterdam’s markets offer a more tranquil start to the Christmas season.
Is this the best Christmas market I’ve ever visited? Probably not, but I’m always fascinated to see how other countries embrace the festive season.
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Amsterdam is one of those cities where you can spend hours just wandering around, and we certainly did plenty of that. You can meander from spot to spot with ease, particularly if navigating foreign public transport baffles you. That being said, Amsterdam’s public transport runs like clockwork.
From the moment you step out of Amsterdam Centraal, you can sense the Christmas spirit in the air. I returned to the city for the first time in ten years, and up until this point, I hadn’t felt all that festive.
Amsterdam served as a stepping stone into Christmas for me before I head back to Vienna again for round two of Christmas on steroids. If there’s anywhere you should flee to in December, it’s Amsterdam. It’s only a train journey away.
A large group of Dodgers fans enthusiastically answered the call during an August home game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was the team’s eighth annual Union Night celebration, and while cheering for the Dodgers, fans also chanted for their local.
“Who are we?” a leather-lunged fan shouted.
“Teamsters!” came the reply.
The Dodgers’ marketing strategy aimed at blue-collar fans of the boys in blue isn’t hypocritical. The franchise reached two landmark Collective Bargaining Agreements in 2023 with the Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW).
Although raises to the 450 employees that included ushers, security officers and groundskeepers were recognized as long overdue and took organized protests and the threat of a strike for the Dodgers to agree to a contract, the result was a decisive victory for union solidarity.
More recently the franchise hasn’t stood in the way of another segment of employees attempting to unionize. It has hammered out an agreement with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) representing the 55 or so Dodger Stadium tour guides — mostly part-timers whose knowledge of Dodgers history and love of the team is unsurpassed.
Yet ratifying the agreement has proven difficult because roughly half of the guides don’t want to unionize. A vote in October failed to pass by a 25-24 margin with six guides abstaining. Repeated emails by The Times to several tour guides who voted against unionizing were not answered, and the Dodgers declined to comment for this story.
The guides supporting the agreement have launched a re-vote for Dec. 15-17, and both sides have spent recent weeks busily lobbying guides perceived as uncommitted. The divide has impacted morale, tour guides say, at a time when Dodger Stadium tours have never been more popular, described by the Dodgers during union negotiations as a “robust money-making operation.”
“The demand has risen tremendously the last two years,” tour guide Cary Ginell said. “It’s been great for the Dodgers. When I joined in March 2022, the cost of a tour was $25. Now no tour is less than $42.50. The team is raking in the money and none of it goes to us.”
Even if the union agreement is approved, however, the battle won’t be over because guides opposing the union have already filed a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board to keep IATSE from representing the tour guides.
Although both sides accuse the other of underhanded tactics in swaying voters, the key issue dividing the group is fairly straightforward.
The new agreement would increase wages by 25% from $17.87 to $24 an hour — roughly the same rate the 2023 agreement did for the SEIU-USWW members — with additional $1 an hour increases in the second and third years of the contract.
Security measures at stadium entry points also would be improved. Tour guides have complained that fans who show up for tours are able to walk into the stadium top deck without passing through security, sometimes even while carrying backpacks.
That lapse would end, according to a draft of the CBA obtained by The Times: “The Employer shall provide and properly staff security checkpoints that include a metal detector and bag search at all designated points of entry for patrons entering Dodger Stadium for purposes of participating in stadium tours.”
Unionizing, however, might end the Dodgers’ longtime practice of giving tour guides four reserve-level tickets for each of the 13 homestands in a season, a perk worth an estimated $2,600 assuming the tickets are valued at $50 each. The prospect of that is a deal-breaker for many of the guides.
Tour guides present during negotiations said the Dodgers refused to mention free tickets in the union contract because they said other part-time union employees then would demand the same perk. The Dodgers made it clear they weren’t necessarily ending the perk, just that the issue couldn’t be addressed in the agreement.
The monetary value of the tickets is greater than the raise for tour guides that work close to the minimum number of 60 four-hour shifts per year. However, the average tour guide works about 125 shifts — 500 hours — a year, and they would be taking home more pay in raises than the tickets are worth.
Some less-experienced tour guides have felt pressure from anti-union veteran guides. Semaj Perry said that during his training in March, an older, respected guide convinced him to sign a decertification petition. Perry has since attended a negotiation session and read the agreement between the Dodgers and the union.
“It’s more of a status thing than a financial decision for some of the older tour guides,” Perry said. “For some of them, this is fun to do during retirement. I took the job because I needed to pay rent. I’m voting yes to join the union.”
Dodger Stadium tours have become increasingly popular — generating more than $1 million a year in revenue — because of recent stadium renovations, two consecutive World Series championships and the signings of Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki.
“The tour program has grown so much in the age of Ohtani,” said Ray Lokar, a veteran Dodgers tour guide whose full-time career was a high school coach and athletic director for nearly 40 years. “The visibility and security responsibilities have been amplified. It’s grown from a mom‐and‐pop operation of a dozen people showing folks around the stadium to a multi-million dollar asset.”
The stadium tours now fall under the management umbrella of a recently implemented revenue-producing initiative called Dodgers 365, which offers year-round rentals of everything from $50,000 for the field to $15,000 for the Centerfield Plaza to $12,500 for the Stadium Club. In September, the LA Card Show made its Dodger Stadium debut, drawing thousands of fans swapping and bartering trading cards.
While recognizing that possibly giving up free tickets is a stumbling block, several veteran tour guides who advocate joining the union are perplexed that so many of their colleagues are suspicious of organized labor. About all they agree on is that they love the Dodgers.
“The tour team amplifies the most valuable asset the Dodgers have: their brand, the 135 years of history, from the borough of Brooklyn to Dodger Stadium,” Ginell, author of 14 books on American music, said. “It’s a different function than any other employee. We make fans happy conveying that history, and it’s that history that got the Dodgers their $2 billion price tag.”
Lokar emphasized fairness as a reason tour guides should vote to approve union representation.
“We should be protected, respected and connected,” he said. “We wanted to feel safe physically and emotionally, be paid fairly, and not treated as second-class citizens.”
Sheinelle Jones is taking the chair next to Jenna Bush Hager on the fourth hour of “Today,” the NBC News program announced Tuesday.
The brand extension of the NBC News morning franchise, which airs daily at 10 a.m., will be renamed “Today with Jenna & Sheinelle” on Jan. 12. Hager has handled the hour alongside guest hosts since Hoda Kotb left “Today” in January.
Jones, 47, will step back from her duties on the program’s third hour which will continue with Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer.
The Kansas native was on leave from “Today” for much of this year due to the death of her husband Uche Ojay, who suffered glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. She returned to the program in September.
Jones, a mother of three, has been a fixture on “Today” since 2014. She joined the program as a co-anchor for the Saturday edition after nine years as a local morning TV anchor in for the Fox station in Philadelphia. She became a co-host for the third hour in 2019.
The fourth hour of “Today” is a breezy, daytime talk show with advice and celebrity conversation. NBC News launched the hour in 2007 with Ann Curry, Natalie Morales and Kotb as co-hosts.
The program gained a cult following when it was co-hosted by Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford, and evolved into a wine mom gathering. Gifford left the program in 2019 and was succeeded by Hager.
We were well into our journey from Los Angeles to Chicago, surrounded by cornfields and grain elevators, when the train halted and a voice rang out.
“All right, folks,” said a man on the PA system. “We’ve come to a stop in what appears to be the middle of nowhere.”
To a traveler in a hurry, this is the stuff of nightmares. To a seasoned passenger on the L.A.-Chicago train known as Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, it’s just another day.
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When you board an American long-distance train in 2025, you are trading the airport routine for entry into a locomotive-driven realm where there is neither TSA nor WiFi. And AI might as well stand for aged infrastructure.
There will be delays, often because of passing freight trains. But in the bargain, you are freeing yourself from worry about aerodynamics or the chronic shortage of U.S. air traffic controllers and gaining access to ground-level scenery and idle hours.
You’re also joining a modest trend. Even before this fall’s bout of flight cancellations during the government shutdown, Amtrak had set records for passengers and revenue in fiscal 2024, then again in 2025. Ridership on the Southwest Chief rose 12.6% in the last year. Amtrak’s long-distance trains haven’t caught up with their pre-pandemic numbers yet, but we seem to like them a little more lately.
Passengers board the Southwest Chief at Los Angeles Union Station.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
To learn why, I boarded the Southwest Chief at Los Angeles Union Station on a recent Monday afternoon. I was ready to see a few desert sunsets from the Sightseer Lounge and hear what people say when they have the time to chat with a stranger IRL.
Before long, I had been party to conversations about fear of flying, doctors in Tijuana, how to make beef jerky and how to sleep in a moving metal box. I’d also heard these sentences:
“I like watching the country go by. I draw and I paint,” said passenger Nancy Roeder.
“I’m a fourth-generation model railroader,” said William Angus.
“I’m not going to lie to you. I took his life.”
This last comment came from a fellow traveler, ruefully disclosing an act of self-defense many years ago. No proof was offered, but I believed it. I also found the teller of the story (whom I won’t name) to be good company, thoughtful and generous.
In other words, on a two-day train, you meet people and hear things that you might not on a four-hour flight.
What Paul Theroux wrote 50 years ago in “The Great Railway Bazaar” is still true: “Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed like Russian short stories.”
Flagstaff by dawn
Passengers relax in the Sightseer Lounge on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
There’s one Southwest Chief departure from Los Angeles every day (and one from Chicago). If everything goes right, the 2,265-mile, 32-stop trip takes about 43 hours.
But only a rookie would count on that. About 60% of the time, the Southwest Chief arrives at least 15 minutes late.
For much of its route through Arizona, the route is flanked by old Route 66 and other lonely desert roads.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Back in 1936, when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway introduced Southwest Super Chief service between Los Angeles and Chicago, this was a roughly 40-hour journey. The passenger list included plenty of show-biz people and the first stop was in Pasadena.
Nowadays, the Southwest Chief is run by Amtrak (which gets government funding but operates independently enough to be unaffected by recent government shutdowns). There are not so many show-biz people now, not as many frills. Instead of Pasadena, its first stop after Los Angeles is Fullerton, followed by a bend to the northeast. By the time I arrived in the dining car for my first dinner aboard, we were nearing Barstow.
“This way, young man,” lied the server winningly as he steered me to a table. (I am 65. In the dining car, every traveler, no matter how aged, gets greeted as a young man or young lady.)
Since booths hold four people, dining car stewards like Chuck Jones manage the delicate task of putting travelers together. Through PA announcements and whispers in the aisles, he encouraged us to introduce ourselves and keep phones off tables.
He also suggested we steer clear of politics — a tall order when traveling through a government shutdown from a city the president had just called “lawless” to one he had just called “the worst and most dangerous city in the world.”
Surprise: Almost everyone complied.
Over the course of six dining car meals as a solo traveler, I heard no political disagreements and met travelers from their 20s to their 80s.
Claudette Toth, a senior from Massachusetts, estimated that she’d only flown three or four times in her life. William Angus, a 24-year-old returning to Chicago from a pilgrimage to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum told of how much he loved running a 1/87 scale model of the Bakersfield-Mojave rail system, re-enacting operations from February 1953.
Ernie Haecker, of Sante Fe and New York, is a regular on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train between Los Angeles and Chicago.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
As Angus spoke, Ernie Haecker, a longtime train lover, nodded in understanding, grinning beneath a handlebar mustache. Haecker, 77, an audiologist, told us he takes the train every six weeks, splitting time between Santa Fe and New York. After so many trips, he knows the crew, knows where the train will pause long enough for him to shave, knows he can count on chatting with “a whole panoply of folks every time.” He even knew the spot in Illinois where the train would switch from one old company’s tracks to another’s.
“We just left the old Santa Fe,” he would say when the moment came. “Now we’re on Burlington.”
My dinner on the first night was another happy surprise — a fairly tender and flavorful flat iron steak. There was a vase holding flowers at every table, along with white tablecloth.
A meal is served in the dining car.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Still, nobody should expect a Michelin-star meal in an Amtrak dining car. It’s common for servers to bring out dessert before the main dish (to avoid running behind later) and at one meal, someone forgot my order and I had to start over half an hour later.
By the time we crossed into Arizona that first night, I was back in my roomette nodding off, lulled like a baby atop a washing machine.
We were near Flagstaff when I blinked awake, glad to catch sight of the sunrise and grateful to have a sleeping area of my own.
Arizona sprawl and the Amtrak class system
Roomettes measure about 23 square feet.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Of the three ways you can travel long-distance on Amtrak, the fanciest option is a private room that’s about 50 square feet (including private bath). The cost — about $3,200 for a couple, one way, when I booked — includes meals in the dining cars. (Family rooms, which hold four people but share bathrooms, cost about the same. All rates fluctuate by season and demand.)
That was too pricey for me and my expense account, so I booked a roomette. The roomettes are about half the size of a private room, with dining-car access and upper and lower berths that allow two travelers to lie flat (or one to spread out). These share toilets and showers. This cost me $809. (For a couple, the tab would have been $1,112.)
The third option was coach class, which means sleeping in your seat. It’s a sensible choice if you’re traveling only a portion of the route, and it’s what I did when traveling this route as a college student 45 years ago.
I was intrigued to see that coach fares start at $198 — only a bit more than the starting price for a flight. But no, not intrigued enough.
As a coach passenger, you don’t get access to the dining car (unless there’s room and you’re willing to pay $20-$45 for a meal). Instead, you bring food, buy snacks in the cafe car below the Sightseer Lounge or, if truly desperate, try to arrange a restaurant delivery to an upcoming fresh-air stop.
Fortunately, all classes get access to the Sightseer Lounge, where armchairs and couches face big windows. I’ve heard of lounges getting pretty crowded and ripe on heavily booked trips, but our trained seemed less than half-full. A few coach passengers dozed in the lounge overnight (which is officially forbidden) and nobody seemed bothered.
That first morning, with coffee in hand, I tiptoed into the lounge, sank into an armchair and watched the desert sprawl while wispy clouds clung to the horizon under a brightening sky.
This postcard (or rather Instagram) moment came somewhere between Winslow and Holbrook. I’m told the scenery is more dramatic on the Coast Starlight (from Los Angeles to Seattle) and the California Zephyr (from Emeryville through the Rockies to Chicago). But this comes down to taste. If you like deserts, the Chief is hard to beat. (Though no matter the route, if you like photography, the train is a challenge: no open windows, so you’re always shooting exteriors through glass.)
As Arizona yielded to New Mexico, the dirt seemed to get redder and the ridges rose to form buttes. Along rivers and creeks, bright yellow cottonwood trees congregated in bursts of yellow. Occasionally we’d glimpse small towns and timeworn roadside attractions — a reminder that Old Route 66 basically follows Southwest Chief’s path between the West Coast and Albuquerque, N.M.
Amish in transit, elk at sunset
Travelers head toward seats at Chicago Union Station.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
“Living in L.A., you forget all this space,” said Kim Rinauro, a nurse from Los Feliz. “When you come out and see how vast this is, it really gives you a different perspective.”
“America is so ginormous,” said Jeanine Bass, a softball coach from Costa Mesa who was on her way to see family in upstate New York.
Meanwhile, one end of the observation car had been filled by several women in white bonnets, joined by men with straw hats, footlong beards and no mustaches. Occasionally I’d hear a sort of clapping sound. Amish families. Playing dominoes.
Amish travelers have been using this route for decades, one of the men told me, on their way to and from doctors in Tijuana. Seeking medical treatment that’s more affordable and easier to schedule than in the U.S., they take trains to Southern California, then continue overland across the border.
Just before we made a 45-minute stop at the station, which is surrounded by a grim neighborhood, an Amtrak staffer took the microphone to sternly address the coach-class travelers.
“Coaches: No alcohol,” she said. “If you bring alcohol, you can stay and spend all night here with the transients.” For those in rooms and roomettes, she continued, booze in private rooms is OK, but not in public spaces.
Farther into New Mexico, we passed the other Southwest Chief train, carrying passengers west.
Between Raton, N.M., and Trinidad, Colo., amid a gaudy sunset, we crept past a herd of elk, then plunged into a tunnel. Emerging, we caught a last bit of sunset, some of the most gorgeous miles of the trip.
Yet this, I learned later, is the part of the trip that Amtrak’s chief executive tried to replace with bus service in 2018. The effort failed and that executive is no longer in the job. But the battles in Washington over Amtrak funding and mission never end, which is why so many cars, like the Superliners on the Southwest Chief, were built between 1979 and 1996. Amtrak leaders have set a goal of replacing their older long-distance cars by 2032.
Speaking of hardware: Eventually I tried the shower. It didn’t go well. First, I saw that someone had stolen the shampoo dispenser. Then I couldn’t find a way to cool the scalding-hot water. I stood as far back as I could in the snug compartment and grimaced my way through it.
Missouri, Iowa and Illinois: The final miles
The concourse at Chicago Union Station is grand but quiet.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
On arrival day, I woke just as we reached the station in Kansas City, another gritty neighborhood along the tracks. Our news feeds were filled with fresh reports of nationwide flight delays because of the government shutdown.
Soon we were crossing the Missouri River, roaring through forest and skirting naked farmland where this year’s corn crop had just been cut. Then came Fort Madison, Iowa; the Mississippi River and the beginnings of Illinois. Water towers and grain elevators.
I zipped my bags shut, tipped the roomette attendant and dining car team. Soon I’d be stretching my legs at the Art Institute of Chicago, walking Millennium Park and along the Chicago River, checking out the skyline from Navy Pier.
We pulled into Union Station within an hour of our target time.
Was it a perfect trip? No. But it was full of humanity, scenery and comforting clangs and rumbles. I even liked the lurching way you had to walk down the corridors, adjusting balance as the train shifts. And then, to step off the train after two days into a brisk Chicago afternoon, 2,265 miles from home, having never left the ground? That’s almost magic.
Tracks dominate the view from the last car on the train.
