It’s about 10:30 AM and Amtrak Train 381, The Carl Sandberg, hurls me steadily onward toward my destination. We left Chicago promptly at 7:35 and by 8:30 we’ve reached cornfields. The transition from city to agriculture happens in a pixilated progression. Modular units of city give way to suburbs, which eventually alternate with patches of fields until stalks of corn and rows of soybeans consume the vast majority of the horizon. Breaking up the landscape are farmhouses, silos, roads, and an occasional water tower advertising that places like PLANO have adequate water pressure.
By 11:55, I am sitting outside of the Quincy train station, waiting for my ride into the center of town. Calling the Quincy train station a “train station” is a generous description. The 18’ x 18’ cinderblock single-room construction is little more than a warming hut for winter passengers. There are no bathrooms. There is no ticket counter. The only retail opportunity is a newspaper box for the latest issue of the Quincy Herald-Whig. I take out two quarters and buy the last copy. Officer Travis Wiemelt gets the above-the-fold photo, below a large headline reading “Chief: Gang Activity on Upswing.” This is difficult to imagine from my vantage point. Does Quincy, like Chicago, have a rough-and-tumble South Side? Looking around, I try to imagine where this gang activity might exist. Certainly not at the quiet train station. Or the animal hospital across the street. A touring polka band wearing matching “IRELAND” t-shirts and Bavarian caps has disembarked from my train and is having it’s picture taken. The breeze smells faintly of cows.
