A friend and I are taking a train from LA to Chicago next spring. It leaves at something like 5 PM.
Being leery of LA-area traffic, and knowing the roads around the station from a previous trip, I’m a little twitchy about spending the day “somewhere else” and needing to get to the station on time, so I’d kind of like us to drop our luggage and car off in the morning, and find something to do that we can accomplish using taxis or public transit.
If you are at Union Station you have access to the entire MTA Metro system. If you want to stay close (within a couple of stops) you can go to Civic Center, Pershing Square, Little Tokyo/Arts District, or Chinatown, or you can go up to Hollywood, down to Long Beach, north to Pasadena, or west to Santa Monica. What sort of things do you like to do?
You’d be right across the street from Olvera Street, where LA was purportedly founded.
In addition, one of the 2 restaurants that claim to be the originator of the French Dip sandwich “Philippe’” (the other being “Cole’s” is within VERY easy walking distance) is located.. I like Philippe’s more for the atmosphere than the sandwich.
You have some good museums near Los Angeles Union Station, including the Museum of Social Justice, the Geffen Contemporary Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art (different from Geffen), and the Broad Modern Art Museum. You also have Angels Flight Railway, which has been on my list of places to visit.
The Silver Streak! That’s a reference to an old movie from 1976 and that train was traveling from LA to Chicago in the movie, although per wiki much of the filming took place in Canada between Toronto and the Rocky Mountains.
We may or may not be “sceneried out” at that point - we’re getting there by driving most of Route 66 (or thereabouts); likely we’ll want to stay with a walk or short cab/Uber of the station, versus venturing to Hollywood, Pasadena and so on. I don’t have a sense for where Little Tokyo etc. are in relation to Union Station so that’s a possibility.
3 years back, we were in Santa Monica and had to drive back to our hotel (not too far from the station) and it was a pretty brutal drive - 20 miles, 90 minutes, so we definitely don’t want to go that far away.
Little Tokyo is just across the freeway. About a 10 minute walk. Just be aware, it’s adjacent to the federal buildings that have been the center of all the excitement over the last month. Chinatown is a 10 minute walk in the opposite direction.
All of these places (and Santa Monica) can be reached from the Metro (light rail) lines that also converge at Union Station, and they are quite reliable during operating hours. Civic Center, Pershing Square, Chinatown, and Little Tokyo are all just 1-3 stops away. As @Tokushizu said, Olvera Street is just across the the street from Union Station and Chinatown is a bit north (but don’t expect much from it compared with other Chinatowns you may have been to). Any place further I’d recommend getting an MTA day pass unless you really like walking.
If you want a good view I’d go up to the rooftop bar at The Standard The Wayfarer (when did The Standard close?) and take a ride of the Angels Flight funicular that @blondebear mentions (check to make sure it is open) which you can reach from the Pershing Square stop on the MTA Red Line and then walk over to Bunker Hill and catch the Blue Line and take it back to Union Station, stopping wherever you fancy (skip “Historic Broadway” to avoid any lingering protests, although frankly the ‘riots’ are about a four block area around the Federal Courthouse and Robert Young Federal Building).
With the time you have it definitely isn’t worth renting a car or getting on the highway but you can take the MTA to wherever it goes with assurance of getting back on schedule.
We’ll actually HAVE a rental car - we’ll be turning it in at Union Station, in fact, but I’d prefer for us to drop that off earlier and hoof it for wherever we go.
I hope you have better luck with the rental return than I did six years ago (or they’ve moved and/or signed it better in the interim). It was just a random hole in the wall, and I must have circled the station for a good 45 minutes before I found someone who could direct me to it. Then I spent another ten minutes or so finding an empty space to put the car.
I vaguely recall having some confusion with ours, back in 2022 (same deal: I couldn’t book it to return there, had to be LAX, but they let me return there anyway). It was in some kind of parking structure attached to the station, at least, but the location did seem kinda odd.
I’m in a DC suburb. For a while I worked at a building that was nominally 7 or 8 miles from home. It took anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour - rarely with any apparent reason for the backups. I have a healthy respect for and fear of traffic jams.
My favorite Olvera Street restaurant, La Golindrina, has closed after about 90 years, but I think there’s a new restaurant there now. It was in the old Pelanconi house, an interesting building being about 170 years old and the oldest remaining brick building in the city.
Union Station itself has a great restaurant, Traxx.
Will you have sleeping accommodations on the train?
I’ve done overnight in coach. I’m too old for that now, LOL. We’ve booked two roomettes - upper level, one on each side, so we’ll have good views the whole way.
The nice thing about this departure is that we have a late afternoon departure so we have time to do something. When my husband and I took the Coast Starlight 3 years ago, it was a morning departure. Basically straight from the hotel to the station.
That’s a reference to an old movie from 1976 and that train was traveling from LA to Chicago in the movie, although per wiki much of the filming took place in Canada between Toronto and the Rocky Mountains.