O'Hare (ORD) to Downtown Chicago by Train

Chicago’s Blue Line train runs from O’Hare to Clark/Lake station in the Loop, the city’s downtown, in about 40 minutes, 24 hours a day, and stops on the way at Logan Square, about 25 minutes in, where a 67-foot column marks the meeting of two of the city’s boulevards.

The Blue Line train runs from O’Hare to downtown Chicago all night

O’Hare station, the airport end of Chicago’s Blue Line train, sits under the airport’s main parking garage, reached by walkway from Terminals 1, 2 and 3; from Terminal 5, the free Airport Transit System people mover goes to Terminal 3 first. Trains leave every six to ten minutes through the middle of the day and never stop entirely overnight, reaching Clark/Lake in the Loop in about 40 minutes. A ride starting at O’Hare costs $5, a surcharge on that station only; coming back from downtown it’s the standard $2.50.

Clark/Lake is a few blocks from the Chicago Riverwalk, where an architecture river cruise shows the downtown towers from the water, and the main Chicago guide covers Millennium Park and the rest of the Loop on foot. The same line serves Clinton station, a few minutes’ walk from Union Station, for anyone switching between a train and a plane.

The Illinois Centennial Monument in Logan Square

The Illinois Centennial Monument, a 67-foot Doric column topped by an eagle, stands in the small park where Logan Boulevard meets Kedzie Boulevard, beside Logan Square station on the Blue Line, about 25 minutes from O’Hare. Henry Bacon, who designed the Lincoln Memorial, built it in 1918 for the state’s hundredth anniversary, with reliefs around the base by Evelyn Beatrice Longman. It costs nothing, and the tree-lined boulevards running off the square make a short loop of their own before the ride back out; a few stops closer to the Loop, Damen station opens onto Wicker Park.

A Brachiosaurus skeleton in Terminal 1

The Brachiosaurus skeleton in O’Hare’s Terminal 1 stands 72 feet tall in Concourse B, outside the Field Museum’s store, where it has been since 1997: casts of the dinosaur’s bones plus life-size models based on its close relative Giraffatitan. It’s past security, so it’s the one thing on this page that doesn’t need the train, and a short connection from a Terminal 1 gate leaves time to walk under it.

Luggage storage at O’Hare

O’Hare has no left-luggage office or lockers inside its terminals, so a suitcase either stays with you or goes to a luggage storage point near the airport or in the Loop. From Terminal 5 the train involves the people mover, an escalator, elevators and an underpass through the parking garage before the platform, a long chain of transfers with a bag in tow.

Collect it on the way back to the Blue Line, and the ride out is the same 40 minutes from Clark/Lake, or 25 from Logan Square. For an onward flight from Midway, the O’Hare to Midway guide covers the change of trains downtown.