The first time I noticed The Nicest Train Operator in Chicago was when, as we pulled away from the Wrigley stop on the Red Line, the train announcement took the form of a kind of city poem: “Wrigley. Cubs. All aboard. Batter up.”

The next time I noticed him was on a Wednesday. As we pulled away from the Lawrence stop, he said, “For sure, it’s not a Monday.” He doesn’t shout. He speaks in a clipped rush, as if whispering a secret on the run. Certain details about him were self-evident: As he pulls into a station, he waves to everyone on the platform; he has the soft, benevolent face of a grandfather; he wears a blue striped conductor’s bib and hat; occasionally, he shakes hands.

But that’s all I knew.

I had the pleasure of being on Powell’s trains during the evening rush multiple times on my way back to my apartment from class/work in my college days. They were the few times out of the hundreds of commutes I made that I remember stepping off the train in a better mood than when I got on.