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U.S. NEWS Friday 7 december 2018

Bushes depart on first presidential funeral train since 1969

By WILL WEISSERT and DA- be laid to rest at a private during 4141's unveiling 13
VID J. PHILLIP ceremony next to his wife, years ago, Bush took the
SPRING, Texas (AP) — The Barbara, who died in April, engineer's seat and helped
locomotive was painted and his daughter Robin, take the locomotive for a
to resemble Air Force One, who died at age 3 in 1953. 2-mile excursion.
but George H.W. Bush Family members, including "We just rode on the rail-
joked that if it had been former President George roads all the time, and I've
around during his presiden- W. Bush, were also aboard never forgotten it," Bush
cy, he may have preferred the 12-car train that was said at the time, recalling
to ride the rails rather than greeted by student cadets how he took trains, and of-
take to the skies. and mourners upon arriving ten slept on them, during
"I might have left Air Force at Texas A&M University. trips as a child with his fam-
One behind," Bush quipped The train's sixth car, a con- ily. He also called the loco- In this Oct. 18, 2005, file photo, a new locomotive numbered
4141 in honor of the 41st president, George H.W. Bush, is un-
during the 2005 unveiling of verted baggage hauler motive "the Air Force One veiled at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
4141, a blue and gray lo- called "Council Bluffs," was of railroads."q Associated Press
comotive commissioned in fitted with transparent sides
honor of the 41st president to allow the mourners lining
and unveiled at Texas A&M the tracks views of Bush's
University. flag-draped coffin. The
On Thursday, that same train rolled past the flash-
4,300-horsepower machine ing lights of firetrucks, some
left a suburban Houston hoisting American flags
railyard loaded with Bush's from their ladders, and past
casket for his final journey state troopers who saluted
after almost a week of cer- from the side of the tracks.
emonies in Washington and It is the eighth presidential
Texas. The train then em- funeral train in U.S. history
barked on a slow roll to his and the first since Dwight D.
presidential library in Col- Eisenhower's body traveled
lege Station, passing thou- from the National Cathe-
sands of people who stood dral in Washington through
along the tracks. Many of seven states to his Kansas
them held up their phones hometown of Abilene 49
for pictures and watched years ago. Abraham Lin-
from highway overpasses. coln's funeral train was the
One of the first small towns first, in 1865.
to greet the train was Pine- Robert F. Kennedy was
hurst, where Andy Gordon, never president, but he was
took his 6-year-old daugh- running for the White House
ter, Addison, out of school when he was assassinated
so she and her 3-year-old in Los Angeles in 1968. His
sister, Ashtyn, could witness body was later transported
the moment firsthand. to New York City for a fu-
"Hopefully, my children will neral Mass and then taken
remember the significance by private train to Washing-
and the meaning of to- ton for burial at Arlington
day," said Gordon, 38. In National Cemetery. Thou-
Addison's hand were two sands of mourners lined the
small American flags. tracks for the 200-plus-mile
At one point, state troop- journey.
ers hovering in a helicopter Union Pacific originally
ordered people to get off commissioned the Bush lo-
the tracks as the train ap- comotive for the opening
proached. Some onlook- of an exhibit at his library
ers left coins on the tracks titled "Trains: Tracks of the
to be flattened into keep- Iron Horse." It was one of
sakes. the few times the compa-
More than two hours after ny has painted a locomo-
departing, the train rolled tive any color other than
to a stop in College Sta- its traditional yellow. Af-
tion, where Bush was to ter a brief training session