Awaiting the Cardinal

Driving westward I noticed the glint of a full moon low and half obscured by the horizon. On its face was another: a clock. The great, bisected dome of Union Terminal came into view, brilliantly lit.

When it had narrowed to a tall sliver of light, I turned North and drove under its massive driveway. A few turns later, I was directly over where I had been. It was a little after midnight and a small handful of people were out front with luggage to my surprise. I pulled into a short-term parking spot and walked up to the building. Ahead of me a man walked to the door, pushed on the handle, and changing his mind, turned back.

Past two doors, I found myself alone in the dim rotunda, my echoing, steady steps the only sound. The Terminal's main draw today is the Cincinnati Museum Center. At the back of the rotunda, next to the glass-enclosed projection system for the Omnimax theater, I found the entrance to the only remnant of the building's original function. The terminal itself measured maybe 500 square feet. A metal gate, the type that typical covers closed storefronts, was pulled down in front of the ticketing agent. In front of him were two customers. He told them that train was on time as he eyed suspiciously the luggageless newcomer.

Awaiting the Cardinal were twenty people, a mix of ages, some slouched in seats, others standing. I looked at the timetable through the gate. Some nights — only at night — you can find a passenger train going to either New York or Chicago on Amtrak's Cardinal line. I turned around and left the terminal, this time passing a fellow rogue in the dark rotunda.

Later, I used Amtraks clunky reservation system to look up whether the next train to Chicago had any open seats. It was fully booked. Googling, I found that there is a whole culture of rail enthusiasts — of railfans — in Cincinnati, who do things like hook their private cars to Amtrak trains.