Looking south from the platform. That is the sheltered seating area on the right.
So long, South Side! The three of us continued our scavenger hunt to reach our next destination, which was the Field Museum. How do we possibly get there? Metra! This was my first time riding Metra - wait, haven’t you already covered a Metra trip? That was my second one, this was held to keep the scavenger hunt a surprise.
The nearest Metra station to the University of Chicago is the 55th / 56th / 57th Streets stop on Metra Electric. It wasn’t too far of a walk to the station from the university - we did it in about 15 minutes. The station was much nicer than Ravenswood was (okay, you were on a temporary platform with that one), with a full high-level platform (standard for Metra Electric though).
In terms of amenities - the station has two island platforms, which is odd for a station with all trains making the same stops north and south of the station (at least until after 63rd or 115th), and there being no express service patterns on Metra. Wait, hold on, I’m not completely sure what happens, but South Shore Line trains also stop here - but not at 57th / 59th or 51st / 53rd - and they might use the outside tracks. Either all trains use the inside tracks (which is what I saw with Metra trains), or Metra uses inside and South Shore uses outside. I might need to revisit.
The station also has an indoor waiting shelter (take that MBTA!) on each island platform. Inside this room is just a long bench, which is kind of comfortable. Not the greatest, but nice that it’s there. A good chunk of each platform is also covered.
Looking south from the platform. That is the sheltered seating area on the right.
Looking north from the platform. That is the stairs up from the 56th Street entrance (which we used) on the left, and from the 55th Street entrance in the background.
The only thing is, I’m not sure if there is a ticket machine here (does Metra even have these? The temporary platform at Ravenswood didn’t). We were in a bit of a hurry and walked straight to the platform when we arrived, so I didn’t check the entrance we came in. I had bought my ticket using the Ventra app on my phone, Stormy has a pass, and Caleb, I believe, bought one onboard the train.
Film-ception! I wasn’t filming anything, but yes, this is the photo I took at that point in the video.
Posted: Oct 5, 2022 20:31
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