More Trains, Chicago, More Trains

Rolling through Montana was a treat. Sadly, the photos I took of that portion of the journey were mostly on my camera, which I would discover later were inaccessible with my chromebook (microcard reader only). Luckily, this realization happened sooner rather than later, so I was able to remedy this before I really started taking a ton of pictures. Up until Chicago, the train ride was quite nice. We were late arriving, as usual, but I still had four hours to kill, and I got to spend it with my good friend Jessica!

She was nice enough to go to Kumas with me, even though beef is not on the menu for her. Had a tasty burger and a decent beer, which after four days on the train I really needed. Got to catch up on life events, because even though she just moved here from Seattle, we hadn't really had a whole lot of hanging out time there recently. Then we hoofed to a drug store for some sundries, i.e. those wet wipes I mentioned previously, and I purchased the most expensive pack of American Spirits ever. Chicago is not a good city to be a smoker. Than, back to the station for one more tasty beer before my train headed out.
The train for the Chicago-Schenactady leg was he complete opposite of the empire builder. The bathrooms were already dirty when we pulled out of the station, and the conductors gave zero shits about pretty much anything. At one point we took on new passengers that were appointed seats that already had people in them, and then all the the train employees just disappeared into thin air. Some poor lady wound up sleeping in the dining car until morning when the new crew who came on board got it sorted.
The high point of this shit show was my seat mate. She was a nice lady originally from Philly who was headed back to visit family. She started out rather stressed, as she had gotten screwed over because her train arrived late and her connecting train had left, even though she had been told it would wait. We talked quite a bit, and my cheerful cynic outlook got her snapped out of her funk.
The low point was when ICE came aboard in Buffalo and hauled a Latino fellow off in handcuffs. They also took what I believe was a Pakistani family whose "papers" were not in order, even though they got on in Chicago, so obviously they must have been processed through the system already at some point. No handcuffs for them though, and to be fair, the fellow involved in that exchange really looked like he would rather be doing something else.