CAN I BUY YOU A COCKTAIL? Not After This Friday, on Chicago METRA Commuter Trains - Rolling Bar Cars To Close!
NEW YORK LONG ISLAND RAILROAD TO BE LAST U.S. COMMUTER LINE WHERE YOU CAN BUY A HARD DRINK ON A COMMUTER TRAIN!
Years ago, when I was working at the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency in Downtown Chicago IL, I would always visit the Bar Car on the Chicago & Northwestern Commuter Railroad Northwest Line Train each afternoon. Indeed, an adult could purchase a cocktail, beer, or wine from a fully-stocked bar, right in the middle of a train traveling through the Chicago Suburbs at over sixty miles per hour!
There used to be Smoker Cars, too - but these have been gone for many years now!
Both were rowdy, jovial places where folks can enjoy a drink or two before heading home to their families and children.
Sounds like a scene from that AMC TV Series Mad Men, doesn't it? In that show, New York Ad Execs from the early 1960's spend their workdays heavily drinking and smoking, yet still turn out a strong creative product. The characters were a few years removed from the dangers of excessive drinking and the health hazards of smoking, I guess.
Effective this Friday, however, the METRA Chicago Commuter Rail Traveling Taverns will make their last call, as the transit agency will pull Bar Cars from the remaining ten afternoon trains on which they appear.
Fret not, those of you who like to imbibe on a moving train. It will still be legal for adults of age to carry on a cocktail purchased at Union or Northwestern Station downtown, or at establishment near any commuter rail station in Chicago or the suburbs. You just won't be able to PURCHASE the beverage on the train.
There appears two reasons for the Bar Cars reaching the end of the line.
First, METRA officials are becoming increasingly concerned that some riders enjoy a few while commuting, then become impaired drivers when they hop in their cars for the final ride home at their destination stop.
Second has to do with pure space available for passengers. Removing the bar car, they feel, could free up space for additional train passengers, as ridership on METRA Trains, Chicago Transit Authority El cars, and buses have been surging as the price of gasoline around Chicago has climbed.
Also, the bar service has been set up in one car's vestibule, where the entry and exit doors to that car normally would have been located. Indeed, bar car patrons have to board the train in another car, and then change cars to get to the bar car. New Federal Safety Regulations require exit doors on all cars, and discourage changing cars while the train is moving.
And, if you're planning a trip to New York City and its Long Island or Connecticut Suburbs, bar service will still be available on select commuter trains on the Long Island and Metro North commuter rail service there. A plan by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority that would have banned alcoholic beverages on trains has been dropped, for now.
For more info, as well as nostalgic stories from current METRA Bar Car patrons, check out Richard Wronski's story in today's Chicago Tribune.
DEAN MOSS & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
