A WORKING CLUB CAR WOULD BE USEFUL AS A REGULAR FEATURE.

Apparently, there is a regular crowd of commuters returning to Milwaukee on the 5.08 Hiawatha departure from Chicago.  The carrier and the crew are not opposed to an occasional party.

Earlier this week, a group of Milwaukee commuters rang in the December holidays while riding home on the train with their annual party. The soiree took place on "the 5:08" in the cafe car where 35-50 riders were eating, drinking and laughing before the train even left Chicago's Union Station.

The story mentions a "cafe" car and the photos clearly show one of the Amdinette cars.  But the train does not offer food or beverage service.  It's bring your own.

Unattributed photograph retrieved from On Milwaukee.

Ordinarily, customers working behind the bar on an Amfleet car would be cause for all sorts of investigations.  Don't let the killjoys in Washington know what's going on.

During the party, Sandy Ross, a commuter who lives in Downtown Milwaukee, collected signatures and donations for the conductors' holiday cards. Every year, the group gives a cash-filled envelope to the 13 conductors – as well as to their favorite gate agent, Chris, in Chicago.

Because the bar car is simply along for extra seating space on a perpetually oversold train (even with reservations) and the rake turns back to return to Chicago within an hour of arrival, policing up is in order.

Toward the end of the line – maybe just north of Racine – riders switched modes from partiers to helpers and started cleaning up the red plastic cups, taco dip containers, thick-crust pizza boxes and homemade cookie and bread containers. Within minutes, the space was pristine again.

The riders are regulars, and they'd like more frequencies, not longer trains. Sorry, Glenview, you're being foolish.

A few mentioned they wanted more routes to-and-from Milwaukee, especially after work.

"If you miss the 5 (p.m.), you're stuck here until the 8," says [West Allis resident Todd] Allen.

Most of the Milwaukee-Chicago commuters have 14-hour work days, so do they consider moving to Chicago? The answer for most is no.

"It's way too expensive to live in Chicago," says Shea Royal. "And Milwaukee has been good to me. I went to college there and I was able to buy a home right after I graduated. Milwaukee has everything Chicago has. It's just smaller and easier to get around."

There might be some system to these parties, and strengthening that formation with a table car and letting self-organization emerge is not a bad thing.

All the same, the 4.20 Milwaukee Express (train 23 on the old Milwaukee Road) had a working lunch-lounge car right to Amtrak day, and Amtrak kept the lunch-lounge car on, and a working cafeteria car on the replacement French turbotrains.  The 5.08 departure is better timed for commuters such as the people in the story.  But why not put the lunch-lounge car back on?