From: Richard Horton <rrhorton@prodigy.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n173
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:41:02 

On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:00:01 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>>
>> Do any list members live in or know the greater Chicago area well?
>
>Me.
>

I grew up in Naperville, the next town closer to Chicago than Aurora.

>> Holly states that Barton is "a town of about 10,000". Is that the size of
>> the real Barrington?
>
>Sounds right.
>

And I'll note that Barrington Hills was indeed famous as a town where
rich people lived -- the Chicago Sun-Times used long ago to do a
yearly list of the communities in the Chicago area ranked by some
metric which defined affluence (a combination of average home price
and average salary and stuff like that), and Barrington Hills was
first on that list some of the time.

>> She also says that it's "65 miles by car from the Loop."
>> Is that
>> the real distance from Barrington to the city centre? It doesn't look that
>> far on my map - it looks more like 30 miles.
>
>Barrington is about 30 miles from the Loop. All suburbanites use this
>metric.
>

Right.  65 miles is getting pretty far out.

>> And, for the record, why is
>> that area of central Chicago called "The Loop"?
>
>It's encircled by The El. Don't ask me to define The El, for God's sake! :-)
>

It's a loop of elevated (hence, The El) train tracks which surrounds a
section of downtown Chicago.  The same train tracks are also a subway
for a while.

>> Could she in real life have made the journey to Aurora by getting a train
>> into Chicago and then a Greyhound Bus out to Aurora?
>
>Probably the only way to do it without a car.
>

Actually, the Burlington Northern runs from Downtown through
Naperville to Aurora, so I don't really think you'd want to take a bus
-- just switch trains.

>> How long would it have
>> taken her?
>
>Several hours.
>

The train route might take 2 or 3 or 4, depending when, Express vs.
Local, stuff like that.  (My memories of how long the trips into the
city, then up to Wrigley Field, used to take have faded.)



-- 
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton@sff.net
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