Bag Storage at Denver Union Station

Denver's Union Station has no place to check bags, at least as of August, 2024. They used to. The station has a very nice hotel called the Crawford, which used to check bags for a fee. They no longer do. The station also services Amtrak, and Amtrak used to have lockers, but they no longer do. I have no idea why, but it's easy to guess.

I had checked out of my hotel in Boulder, taken the (very nice) Flatiron Flyer bus back to Denver, and now I had time to kill before my evening train back to Chicago. Where could I park my bags, so I could walk around and explore, unfettered? I asked at the front desk of the Crawford Hotel and the nice lady there gave me a card for LUGDEN. LUGDEN is....a van. A van parked on Wynkoop Street, by 17th, right across from Union Station. They'll let you check luggage for a fee (at the time of writing, $3/hour or $10/day). I was able to check both of my bags successfully, head to Meow Wolf, followed by lunch and wandering, then swing back and pick up my bags in time to grab a pre-train cocktail at the Terminal Bar.

So, I'm sharing this here for those who, like me, searched online and found information lacking. You'll find old message board posts that suggest that Amtrak and the Crawford will check bags for a fee, but then neither Amtrak or the Crawford's website say this any more, and when I asked at the hotel, they weren't storing bags for non-guests. So, anything you see online suggesting otherwise is probably out of date.

Need to store luggage at Denver's Union Station? You'll want to look for LUGDEN. Find their website here, get a card from the front desk of the Crawford Hotel, or look for them on Wynkoop Street.

While it may seem to be a bit of an odd setup, everything worked fine, the process was easy, the person manning the van was professional, and they do take credit cards. I had no issues at all and would recommend them to others.

Megabus Double Decker Fun

I've written about Megabus before. I take it down to Indianapolis for work pretty often. I've ridden it many times, though after my one bad experience with the bus breaking down, I avoided it for a while.

So, I started taking the Amtrak down. It's a lot of fun if it's a night when the Cardinal runs. There's a bar car and food to be had, and it's a comfortable ride. Takes longer than driving, or longer than the bus, though. The Amtrak is always delayed in transit due to freight traffic, and it makes a lot of stops. This means what is about a three or four hour drive ends up being a five to six hour train ride. By the end of it it's after midnight and I'm usually sleepy and grumpy. Still, better than driving.

The return train from Indianapolis to Chicago leaves very early in the morning, which doesn't work for me. So, I ended up drifting back to the Megabus. For a while I was doing a split ticket, taking the Amtrak down and the Megabus back. That worked out well. If the bus doesn't break down, it's a comfortable ride. Sometimes, if it's crowded, it's a bit less fun, but still, usually tolerable.

Last time around, I wasn't able to book my travel until the last minute. The train was sold out, so I had little choice but to take the Megabus down. To my surprise, I was able to ride a double decker bus. A friend had warned me that the top floor of a double decker can feel a little wobbly as you bob and weave down the highway, so I sat downstairs. I had just about the entire downstairs to myself, and it was a pretty sweet setup. It had chairs organized in a sort-of lunchroom/kitchenette setup, with a set of two chairs facing front, two chairs facing back, and a table in the middle. Since it was just me, I had plenty of room to spread out, set up my laptop and catch up on work, etc. It was a very nice ride. Very quiet, and since I had just about the whole downstairs to myself, I imagined that this is what it feels like to ride on a private bus, like the Madden Cruiser. Not bad at all.

So, next week, I'm probably heading down that way again. Should I take the train, or the Megabus?

Amtrak: Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis

Last week, my girlfriend had to go to NYC for business. I didn't go with her, and because I had nothing else going on, I decided to go visit some friends up in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

It's only an hour on a plane, but when you include getting to the airport, parking (or transit), security, waiting, delays, weather, etc., it becomes a big ordeal. I'm not a huge fan of flying, though I am certainly grateful that I live in a big city (Chicago) with two airports and affordable flights just about everywhere.

But, since this was going to be for fun, I wanted a more relaxing way to travel. So, I turned to Amtrak. I took the Empire Builder train from Chicago to Minneapolis-St. Paul last Wednesday.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. The train left around 2pm and arrived around 10:30 pm. After boarding from the "first class lounge" at Chicago's Union Station, I was ushered to my Superliner Roomette, a tiny cabin with two comfortable chairs that fold down into a bed (and there's another bed overhead). The accommodations were amazingly comfortable. There was free bottled water, and an offer of free champagne (which I declined; too early in the day for me).

The seats recline and were quite comfortable. There's not a lot of room to stand around, but that's okay -- a private room is a private room, and a quiet place to relax is to be cherished. There was a volume control for the train announcements, a power outlet for a laptop or razor, a heat control, and a tiny closet that could barely hold my coat. They leave you a couple of bottles of water, and there's kleenex and a garbage can in the room as well. That's about it. The restroom is down the hall, and I have no idea where or if you can shower if you stay in one of these overnight. I'll figure that out on a future trip.

I have a Sprint USB modem, so for a long while out of Chicago I was online checking email, listening to streaming radio, and killing time on IM as I watched the sites roll by. Lots of farmland, but it's still fun to watch. The internet lasted for somewhere around the first half of the trip, then started dropping out too much to be useful. I suppose we were outside of a major Sprint coverage area.

Booking a room apparently entitles one to a meal, so I had what I jokingly refer to as a "train quality steak" for dinner. It was perfectly fine. Not quite Morton's, but it was good and did the trick. The only downside to a sit down meal on the train is that you don't know who you're going to sit with -- the seating is communal, and you will end up sitting and talking to people you don't know. I don't consider that much of a relaxing experience, and it doesn't help that the trains are full of people who want to meet people and hang out and chat. I fended off questions about my job and what I actually do (you work with the computers?) while having dinner with a couple of random gentlemen, one of whom was older and probably not very technology savvy.

After dinner, I stopped in the bar car for a drink, which I brought to my cabin. I then watched a few recorded TV shows on my laptop to run out the clock until we got to the Twin Cities. It was quite relaxing.

After we arrived at the stop in Minneapolis-St. Paul, there were ample cabs available, and it was a short ride to my hotel in downtown St. Paul. (More on the hotel in a subsequent post.)

As far as booking my trip, I was hedging my bets because I wasn't sure what the train experience would be like. So I had only booked a one way trip. I was happy enough with the experience that I booked the train for the return trip the next day.

The eastbound train is supposed to come through very early in the morning (by my reckoning) -- it leaves at 7:50 AM. On Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of bed, had a minor freak out when a cab took forever to arrive at my hotel, then made it to the train station around 7:30.

When I go there, I found no train. The train should have arrived already and been there waiting for us. There were buses sitting there, which I didn't think anything about. I went inside and up to the counter, and found out that the train had been delayed far west of us, due to an avalanche. The train wasn't expected at Minneapolis until 3:30 pm, and I had no clue what to do.

It turns out that Amtrak had a plan -- they procured buses for us. They split us up based on destination, and then we left on big "Greyhound"-style buses instead of a train. On time, even. What can I say? It was disappointing. I was really looking forward to a private cabin and a quiet nap on the way back to Chicago. Instead, we're crammed into buses instead, with no room to stretch or walk around. Sitting next to some random stranger, trying not to elbow them the entire time.

On top of that, I forgot my book and my headphones back at the hotel. Meaning, no iPod, and no book to read. Nor was my laptop battery very charged, as I had intended to plug it in on the train, if needed.

Somewhere in the western side of Wisconsin, the bus stopped and changed drivers. A bit further down the road, at Wisconsin Dells, the bus stopped and Amtrak bought everybody lunch at Burger King. Then, we were back on the road, and straight through to Union Station in Chicago. We actually got to the station a bit faster than if we took the train, and as always, it was easy for me to catch a cab from Union homeward. I would've taken public transit, but I had luggage and was tired.

I was quite bummed that I didn't get to ride the train home on Sunday. However, I am amazingly grateful to Amtrak -- they had a contingency plan, and they executed on it perfectly. We left on time, they provided a meal, and we made it into Chicago safe and quickly. It wasn't my favorite traveling experience, but we were not left stranded or hungry. We weren't even delayed.

Verdict: I'll take Amtrak to Minneapolis again! Maybe with a contingency plan of flying home if the train is delayed.