Well Nicki, there are a couple of options on this, depending upon the day of the week and time of day.
It's aboout a 40-mile trip from the Loop downtown out to Six Flags Great America Theme Park in Gurnee, up near the Wisconsin state line. The key is the #572 Pace bus which connects Six Flags to THREE different train lines, which run on three different schedules.
And to add to this complexity, these three train lines take three different routes out of Chicago....north, northwest and west. So you'd have to add in your starting location, and how long it would take you to get to the nearest station of each of those lines, so you could catch the train in the first place!
Once you had the day and time of your trip, you would have to spread out the #572 schedule (which is set up to co-ordinate with the arrival of SOME of those trains) with the three train schedules and compare travel times.
And congratulations on your finish in Calgary last June
<
http://www.bellcitychase.com/results/2006/calgary/...>