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trains that played a part in the presidencies of andrew jackson, abraham lincoln, warren harding, franklin roosevelt, harry truman, dwight eisenhower, and george h.w. bush, and of a presidential spouse ladybird johnson. he's the author of "the president travels by train: politics." now i'd like to introduce our special guest today bob withers. bob is an author. of course, he has written this book, which is the subject of our discussion today. the president travels by train. it was actually his first of what is now 29 books and came out in the first edition in 1996. it's subsequently been updated several times. and in 2018 was rereleased. i believe it's the third or fourth edition of the book. bob himself was a journalist by

trade, and for 38 years worked for the huntington harold dispatch in huntington, west virginia, where he currently lives. he has a ba and an ma at marshall university. and he worked for the road while he was in college. and that actually is how i got to know bob. i interned at the baltimore and ohio railroad museum in baltimore, maryland. and our mutual interest and admiration for the b&o got us together. i welcome bob, and i will begin the presentation now. one other programming note. so, understand that all presidents use trains to travel around and still do on some occasions. we've picked seven presidents because of some specific issues that they encountered or some specific milestones that are associated with their presidential train travel. at the conclusion of this talk, we're going to end with a couple of video presentations from the george h.w. bush funeral train

courtesy of union pacific. so please stick around for that. i think you'll enjoy that very much. there's three main, i guess, pieces of presidential train travel, the campaign which is probably what you're most familiar with, while in office, and then after the president passes away. we're going to move from president to president and talk about all three of those, even though it may be a little bit out of chronological order, it would probably be the best way to handle it. so, bob, are you there? >> yes, sir. >> wonderful. welcome to the program. thank you for joining us today. so we're going to start with the first president to travel by train. and how they did it. so, bob, talk to us a little bit about andrew jackson and john quincy adams and who was first and why there's a difference between then. >> well, actually john quincy adams was the first. but it was after he was

president. >> uh-huh. >> he was returning to washington to be a member of the u.s. house of representatives. and on december 30th -- december 17th, 1830, he got there, and he traveled from massachusetts several ways, steamboat, road. when he got to baltimore, the railroad had just started with cars being pulled by horses. he had a horse and wagon that they put up on a flatcar and hauled him about 7 miles from baltimore to relay house.

and then they let his horse and wagon off the flatcar, and they went the rest of the way on the road. that's possibly -- well, definitely it's a first piggyback operation the railroad ever saw. piggyback means truck trailers placed on flatcars, and when they get where they're going, the tractor backs up, picks them up and takes them off the flatcar. so very few people know that that first piggyback operation took place in 1830. >> yep. >> jackson was the first sitting president to ride a train. he went to ellicot city, maryland. and when he started back, he got to a crossing where the railroad

cars, he spelled it steam cars because by then steam locomotive, and he got on that steam car and rode 7 or 8 miles back into baltimore. and he was astonished that the train was traveling so fast and that nobody got hurt. >> yeah, i can imagine that that new technology back then was certainly impressive and also quite frightening to a lot of people that were not used to that speed of travel. speaking of the speed -- before we get to the next item, we're looking here, ladies and gentlemen, at what are called imlay cars. these are in baltimore, maryland, at the museum. you may have seen them before because both of these specific cars were used in the movie

"omnistad" which featured john quincy adams traveling aboard these cars. which leads me to the first railroad wreck in the united states also involved john quincy adams in 1833. do you want to talk a little bit about that? >> well, i'll get to my book here because i don't remember that much about it without looking at it. >> okay. >> it says that adams was nearly killed in the first major railroad accident in the united states on friday november 8, 1833 he was riding across new jersey toward washington. at an unheard of speed, of almost 25 miles an hour. when an overheated bearing caused an axel in his coach to break. the cars careened down an embankment. his coach remained upright and no one in it was hurt. but the one just behind his, two

men were killed instantly, 15 were injured and a woman and her child were mutilated beyond expectation of recovery. >> and this is from a contemporary report, bob, correct? >> correct. >> so, quincy adams, even though he wasn't the first sitting president to ride, he certainly was involved in several early milestones in presidential train travel. and unfortunately the railroad wreck is one of the ones that is most notable because the 25-mile-an-hour travel was something that was very, very unusual for that time and for that era. by the way, bob referenced journals. and if you look at the picture we're looking at right now on the imlay cars, down by the wheel on all the cars in the center of the wheel is a brown circular item. it's where the car actually sits on the wheel itself. and when the car rolls down the track, those could get very hot, and so hot that the metal would melt and the car would fall down

off the wheel. and that's what bob was describing when he said the journal, which is what that's called, broke, and the car derailed when it fell off the wheels and then fell down the embankment. we'll move on to president abraham lincoln, which is someone we probably all know a little bit about as far as his presidential travel. this image you're looking at right now highlights the stops he made on his journey from illinois after he was elected president to washington d.c. you can see it's a little bit fuzzy, apologize for that, that he made 93 individual stops on his rail journey. rail journeys then were not like they are now. they weren't very quick at all. but before this, before this journey, he spent quite a bit of

time in illinois traveling by train because of the lincoln/douglass debates. do you want to talk about his problem with the illinois central railroad during that period of time? >> well, my favorite story about lincoln is one that i found in a book called "lincoln and the railroads," only 227 copies of them were ever printed. i received the book because of interlibrary loan, which was a great thing. i had no idea that it existed before i got into the research for this book. but you can borrow these books from other libraries, if they have them. anyway, i finally got a copy, only 227 copies ever printed. and when i opened it up, the pages had not even been cut apart. nobody had even read the book. so, i carefully cut them apart and took the book home and copied every page in it.

but my favorite story, henry villard writing for a newspaper in new york city told about a conversation he had with abraham lincoln in a box car. he and i met accidently about 9:00 on a hot sultry evening at a flagstop, that's where the train stops on the condition there's somebody there to be picked up or dropped off. it's not a regular stop. he had been left there alone. the train that we intended to take to springfield. after reading for a half an hour, the train had come in. a thunderstorm compelled us to take refuge in an empty freight car standing on a sidetrack. there being no buildings of any kind at the station, we squatted down on the floor of the car and

started talking about all sorts of subjects. it was then and there he told me when he was clerking in a country store, his highest political ambition was to be a member of the state legislature. since then, of course, he said with a laugh, i have grown some, but my friends got me into this business being a railroad lawyer. i did not consider myself qualified for the united states senate, and it took a long time to persuade myself that i was. now, to be sure, i am convinced that i am good enough for it, but in spite of it all, i'm saying to myself every day, it is too big a thing for you, you will never get it. his wife insists, however, that i am going to be a senator and the president of the united states, too. in these last words followed a roar of laughter with his arms

around his knees and shaking all over with mirth at his wife's ambition. just think, he exclaimed, of such a sucker as me for president. [ laughter ] >> it's one of those stories, bob, where you don't often think of abraham lincoln as a very funny man with a lot of humor. but if you read deeply into any of the stories that are written about him, like you have just done, you'll see that he does have an incredible sense of humor and was quite a humble man. i'm not sure mary todd could force him into the presidency, but certainly her inspiration and her standing with him and behind him and in front of him and often times got him to where he ultimately landed. and later on in this talk we're going to talk about a couple of other first ladies that played a similar role in the lives of their husbands, the presidents. one other thing, bob. can you talk a bit about what it was like to travel on a train during lincoln's time? we often think in contemporary terms about the comforts that we

all enjoy in an automobile, a train, an airplane with the comforts of modern era. can you talk a bit about what it was like for lincoln? during his journey that he took from springfield to d.c., what was it like for him to be on board a train back then? >> i tell you, that's even before my time. so i'm not sure how it would've worked out except that the cars were wooden. a lot of them had wood stoves in them to keep warm in the winter. there was no such thing as air-conditioning. no such thing as reclining seats or rotating seats. it was sort of like, i guess, you see movies of people riding on stagecoaches. it couldn't have been much better than that. >> and then for light, there was obviously no electricity so they

used candles. >> candles or oil-burning lights. >> and those kind of open flames on a wooden railroad car were often quite dangerous, and people were very nervous about traveling and spilling the oil or perhaps dropping a candle on a wooden car. and we won't go into recounting those problems, but certainly that era of train travel from the 1860s probably to early 1900s was quite dangerous because of that and many other issues, again, that we won't go into on this conversation. >> by the time early 1900s, they began making passenger cars out of steel. and they were much more substantial and much safer. >> right. agreed. and that's what we use today. so moving to a little bit more somber subject, bob, we're looking right now at abraham lincoln's funeral car that was

used to transport his remains from washington, d.c. back to springfield, illinois, where he was laid to rest. do you want to talk a little bit about the funeral train and the way it unfolded and what the public perception of it was? >> well, that funeral car was made for lincoln to ride in as president. but it turned out to be his funeral car because he was assassinated shortly before his term was to expire. the route the funeral train took back to springfield, illinois, was similar to but, with some exceptions, different than the trip he had made to washington. there are stories about so many people putting flowers on the rails ahead of the train that

the wheels would spin and slip, and they'd have to get the flowers off the rails before the train would proceed. and back in the days when embalming was not the exact science it is now, they would have to carry materials in the funeral car under the casket to touch up the face of the deceased several times on that trip. it took several days to get his body over to illinois for burial. >> and we're looking at a picture now, bob, of a broader image of the funeral train. and you'll notice the decorations that festoon the outside of the train with the different bunting, the flags. and i'm going to move to another picture here, which is a little bit more of a closeup of a locomotive. you'll notice there's a picture of abraham lincoln prominently placed on the front of the

locomotive so people were aware of the significance of the trip. the locomotive itself is quite small compared to modern standards. but for the era, this was the top of the line transportation. we're going to move on now to theodore roosevelt otherwise known as the bull moose, his presidency, of course, began suddenly with the assassination of william mckinley. but before we get to that, we'll talk a little bit about president roosevelt the campaigner. of course, he has the nickname the bull moose because he was a man of boundless energy, quite an intellectual, and quite a physical presence in modern particleance, he would be the guy that sucked the oxygen out of the room when he entered it. so, bob, in your book, you talk about sort of a conundrum for roosevelt. he obviously enjoyed train travel and traveled extensively.

but he also was the first president to fly in an airplane. and, of course, that was after his administration. when he traveled campaigning for vice president with william mckinley in 1900, he traveled 21,000 miles during that campaign on a train and made 673 speeches according to your book. here we have a picture of him making a speech from the rear platform of an observation car. can you talk a little bit about what that speechifying was like? >> when the train got to a certain city, the candidate would come out on the rear of his private car, like you see in the picture there, and he would talk directly to the people, which was a lot better than the

way presidents travel today 35,000 feet up in the air. people got to know the man. i remember harry truman one time saying something like, why do you do this, why do you go all over the country speaking to people from the rear of a train? he says, well, i don't have any better sense, i don't have anything else to do, nothing better to do. but the people got to know the presidents that way. they got to know the candidates. they got to know what they believed in, what they promised to do so they could be sure that they could find out when they got into the white house that he would do what he said he was going to do. >> the president or the candidate in this case would sometimes debark from the train and walk through the crowd, correct? >> yes. >> and what was security like back then in the tr era?

>> well, not very good. >> right. >> as a matter of fact, there's a story not about roosevelt himself but about tom dewey who stopped, his train stopped at some city, i forget now where it was in western kentucky, i think. and he was campaigning against harry truman, and the engineer of the train had uncoupled from the train and moved ahead to get water in the water tank. and then when he came back and coupled the train, the train started inching backwards. and people were afraid that somebody was going to get killed or hurt by being run over by a reverse move of that train. there was a b&o police officer

named earnest chapman who very quickly reached up and pulled a lever that put the brakes on the train and stopped people from getting hurt or killed by that reverse movement. it was, in a way, i guess, from roosevelt's time on up, it was the best way to find out what a man is, what a man looks like, what a man thinks like. but it did have its elements of danger. >> it absolutely does and it actually still does today. as we'll see when we get to the union pacific video, there are a couple of clips of people standing and respecting president bush as he moved to college station on his final train trip. and you'll notice that some people are standing dangerously close to the tracks, which is something we would definitely discourage. a couple of other things, bob, when we're talking about tr.

in 1906 in your book you discuss the cost of all this. this is something we really haven't touched on yet. and obviously the railroads can't do this for free. and if you're traveling well over 20,000 miles, there's expenses associated with that. in 1906 the congress passed an appropriation for the presidential travel. do you want to talk a little bit about that? >> well, i tell you, there's a much better story concerning that. >> okay. >> with calvin coolidge. >> okay. >> calvin coolidge was a very frugal man. some people would say he was actually -- and he did not like the idea of having a special train for the president. he says, you can put my car on the rear of a train, a regular train, but don't do a special train. well, he took off in december of

1927, i think, at two places in chicago. and he decided that he would go in a regular compartment in a regular sleeping car. and i believe the name of the car was "the president grant," of all things. he would eat in the diner. he would sleep in that compartment. he found out before too long, this was in the days before trains were air conditioned, that the car was very hot, even though it was in december. so he had to sit there in his compartment with the door open, and everybody on the train, the word passed throughout the train, and people would come walking along the aisle and look

in there and gawk at him. [ laughter ] and he didn't like that. and he would eat his meals in the diner along with the other passengers, which was a very insecure situation, the secret service felt. i remember one time the waiter asked him, does your car feel all right? and he just said, yes. and later he asked his wife, i wonder why he would say that, why he might've thought there would be something wrong with it. [ laughter ] he made another stop. he was very frugal in his speech, too. i forget where this was, i think it was willard, ohio, on another

trip east. and the secret service man came in and said there's a lot of people out here that want to hear from you, they're gathering around the rear of the car. and finally he came out, and it took him a long time to consider the question. and just as he came out, the train started forward. and he said to the crowd, good-bye! >> they heard from him, bob. >> yeah, one word. >> he was a man of economy in his speech as well. there's no doubt about that. so, in the image we're looking at now, actually it's not a mistake, it's actually called a stereoscopic image, and it's designed to provide depth of field if you're wearing the proper eyeglasses to see that, and the stereo means that each eye would see one side of it with the glasses on you would

see a very deep field, and you'd see all those faces in the very back. you'll notice that tr is on the rear of the platform as he traditionally was. he's leaning forward because he's missing something that's a more modern invention. we'll talk about that in a moment. and that is voice amplification or a p.a. system is what they call it now. so all of this campaigning that was done in this era was shouting it out. so you could see how close the people are to the car because they wanted to hear what he had to say. and if you weren't good at projecting your voice or you could even call it yelling, people couldn't hear what you had to say. so anything you said really didn't make much difference because people didn't hear it. and especially reporters wanted to crowd up very close to the car. we'll see a couple of pictures later on of this, trying to get the exact words that the president spoke or the candidate in this case. so, they could report their

stories accurately and accuse each other of misquoting and all the political stuff you understand happens then and now. the other thing, back to the money, roosevelt campaigned in 1900 as the vice presidential candidate, the cost of that campaign trip was $118,000. and there was no money to pay it. and there was a deep sense of embarrassment in the republican party, and president roosevelt. and congress in 1906 passed a law that allowed for presidential travel and an appropriation of $25,000 which seems today like almost nothing but back then was a princely sum of money for presidential travel by train. so, we'll move a little bit ahead. this is another example of a stereoscopic image and the way that trains were decorated, bob mentioned earlier the flowers that were placed on the rail for the lincoln funeral train.

this is a more happy occasion. and you can see that the locomotive is decked out in all sorts of finery. i'm not sure a hardcore railroader would appreciate that, but certainly the people who were riding on the train loved it. now we're going to move on to a president that you probably might not expect to see in this presentation. warren harding 1920, 1923. he served in office. and here he is on the back of a car as tradition would have it with his wife and an associate. and they're about to go on a trip. the reason i picked president harding, and, of course, all the presidents are covered in bob's book all the way. if i haven't already mentioned that. there is his wife waving to the crowd. you notice that she's decked out in the early 20th century traditional garb and wearing gloves and a hat. the reason i mentioned warren harding is because he took an enormous trip, probably one of the longest trips a sitting

president took to alaska to complete the last major railroad constructed in the 50 united states, the alaska railroad. but before that he also -- and this is a picture by the way of a locomotive that was decked out to pull that train -- here is a picture of him of the locomotive in alaska as his train wound toward the location of the last. before we get to that though, warren harding actually enjoyed something that president teddy roosevelt and even president wilson did not, and that is amplification of his voice. by this time in the late teens and early 1920s, at&t actually installed a voice amplification system, and that's what they called it, in the presidential car, and they were able to use it to broadcast their voice. we'll see pictures of what that looked like here in a minute. but first let's talk a little bit, bob, about the presidential trip to alaska.

now, harding didn't campaign much by train. they called it a front porch campaign where people came to him rather than them going to him -- i mean him going to them, excuse me. but when he was elected, bob, he actually took the throttle for a trip in texas. do you want to talk a little bit about that? >> he, in that case, was like me. he loved to ride in the cabs of locomotives. and on several occasions he is pictured riding in the cab of the locomotive, an electric locomotive, and the alaska train was a steam train. and he actually ran it for several miles under the careful guidance of the engineer standing right beside of him. i would like to mention one thing that happened to him before he became president,

1920. he didn't make, like you say, he didn't make very many campaign trips, but he did make one. and as he was coming down the b&o railroad between parkersburg and huntington, he was at a little small stop called millwood. he wasn't supposed to stop there, but a spring of some kind, an equalizer spring under his private car broke and derailed the car, and it rode across the trestle about 900 feet without going into the creek or the ohio river. the car was dancing around, it was clipping the spike heads off, it was crushing tires. but it didn't actually leave the track until it got to dry ground

on the south side of the trestle. harding and his wife were in the car. they were trying their best to keep their balance as they bobbed around and twisted and turned. and they came out to see what had happened, and they viewed the wreck, they simply left the car where it was, got back on the next car forward, went down to make a station stop in mason city, and he had presence of mind enough to use what happened to him as an illustration about you better elect me and keep the other party from derailing this nation. >> so he came up with a campaign slogan right there on the spot. >> right. >> you mentioned the other

party, bob. james cox was his opponent in the 1920 election. an interesting observation you made in your book is when james cox was traveling by train, which was obviously the most effective way to travel, he was going from dayton, ohio, to san francisco. and on board the train they published a newspaper that was specific to the train, four pages long, that they distributed every day while they were en route. so the media could be informed of what candidate cox, of course, was up to and what his thoughts were on any particular issue of the day. and as far as i could tell from your book, bob, that's the only time a newspaper was published on board a train while it was in motion. is that a fair statement? >> i believe that's correct. >> so they were combining two of your favorite professions right there in one, journalism and railroading. >> right. >> and, by the way, even though

he didn't win the election, mr. cox traveled almost 22,000 miles campaigning by train and is estimated to have met almost 2 million people during that trip. so, and probably shook about half of those hands. so don't think that just because you meet people, you can win an election. unfortunately, he was defeated by president harding. so moving on to harding's trip to alaska, bob. this was an enormous trip, 70 people were in his party. june of 1923. and the goal was to complete the alaska railroad with the traditional gold spike. here's a couple of other images i'll move through. this journey through what then and some would say now is quite a wilderness. a little too far ahead. so, talk a little bit about the significance of the gold spike and what that meant both in 1869 as well as with the gold spike. and why was that a significant event?

>> well, because it symbolized the completion of the railroad line. and there's a picture in my book where harding is -- actually he looks kind of awkward, like i would be if trying to drive a spike into the rail -- or into the tie -- but i think what they did, they let him give it the first whack. and then the railroad people who did that kind of thing for a living drove it the rest of the way in. but it was a very hot day even in alaska, and i think that spelled some trouble for him, which we heard about later on in the trip. >> so after that he completed the last spike, the plan was to take a train all the way back,

actually from fairbanks to seattle, i believe, they took a ship. but then they were going to take a train back to washington d.c. and on that trip early on in the trip actually, president harding took ill, and they diverted to san francisco. and ultimately he passed away in san francisco, which led to this. now, not to be morbid, but you'll notice that his remains are being loaded, he is covered in a flag as is tradition, but it's being loaded rather haphazardly into a baggage car to be traveled back to d.c. this process of moving the remains of the deceased president by train has evolved a lot from the era of lincoln. now we're looking at harding. and we're about to move into the

fdr and later eisenhower and george h.w. bush. it's a much more solemn occasion than you see in this photo here, which i wanted to share with you as a point of contrast to what we're going to be talking about here in a little bit. so now we're going to move on to franklin roosevelt, a man who spent an enormous amount of time on a train while he was president. in fact, in your book, you mention that he traveled about 243,000 miles on 399 distinct trips. but you also called the roosevelt administration in his travel on train a time of curious transition. do you want to talk a little bit about what that means? >> of course, the biggest change occurred after the united states entered world war ii after the

bombing of pearl harbor by the japanese on december 7th. i think it was, like, early in 1942, they gave him a specially modernized and reequipped pullman car. it had been -- the name of it was ferdinand magellan. and it was one of six cars that pullman built, this particular one came out in 1929, and it was altered because of world war ii. now, get this. the rims were reduced from five to four to a large room and observation labs. that was steel armored plating 3/8 inch thick added to the sides, the floor, the roof and

the ends making the car bulletproof and bombproof. there was 3-inch thick bulletproof glass which would stop a 50 caliber machine gunfire. there were escape hatches in case the thing derailed or fell off a bridge or whatever. escape hatches in the observation ceiling and on the side of the car near the center of the car above a shower. special wheels, roller bearings were installed to support the extra weight. and, by the way, that weight increased from 80 tons to 142 1/2 tons. it was the heaviest railroad car ever built or rebuilt. that was one storage compartment for ammunition. it took 6,000 pounds of ice in bunkers to keep the car cool.

they would have to stop along the way when they ran out of ice and put more ice in it. every room had a telephone. when the train was standing, the telephone was plugged into a train outlet. when the train was moving, it was connected to a communications car at the head end of the train that could put the president in touch with any world leader anywhere. there was a back door that led from the lounge to the rear platform, weighed 1,500 pounds. it could only be opened from the inside. only the word "pullman" on the letterboard. and then later -- well, there was the presidential seal was on

the rear railing, and the railing was made higher because roosevelt had had polio. his legs didn't work. and that higher platform would help him hold himself up. he didn't want anybody to know about his handicap. he did everything in the world to try to keep people from finding out. and later an elevator was installed on the rear platform so they could wheel him in privacy up to that elevator, and the elevator would go up, and he'd get wheeled off onto the rear platform and go right into the car. the ownership was transferred to the association of american railroads and it was called u.s. car number one. and the only markings on it were "u.s. car number one."

roosevelt traveled 50,000 miles in it. but truman traveled almost 30,000 miles in it in the 1948 campaign alone. i traveled in it three types. he called it that old ark. as a matter of fact, somebody had the bright idea one time of he was on his way to ohio to dedicate a new college or something, and they put it on the head end of the train behind the buffer car, and that would leave a very small amount of room between the end of the car and the buffer car. and when he tried to speak to people during the stop at willard, ohio, not very many people could get close enough to see him or hear him. and he never did it that way again. the last time the car was used was by eisenhower when she

traveled in 1954 to visit the nuclear sub nautilus. and then, of course, ronald reagan used the car in 1984, october 12, 1984, on his trip through western ohio. but the car's water system wasn't working. so every time he had to use the bathroom, he had to go forward into the next private car. >> and that car right now, bob, is on display where? >> the museum in miami, florida. >> so if you are interested in seeing something that's really a part of presidential history, that's where you can go see it. >> that's exactly right. >> here we see a picture of president roosevelt sitting in the lounge area of the car. you see the shades are drawn on the windows. and he often spent time there playing cards and entertaining guests or aboard the train and serving them drinks. and a lot of stories that we don't have time to go into of

president roosevelt's famous hospitality on board the train, especially getting the drinks that the guests preferred rather than the ones that were offered. also a couple of things that you might find interesting are president roosevelt that he was quite superstitious about his train travel. he never started a train trip on the 13th of the month, and he also never left on a friday. and if he had to, he would always leave ten minutes before the strike of the midnight or ten minutes after into the saturday. and, finally, bob, one other item on president roosevelt. one of the interesting stories to tell about roosevelt and later truman and eisenhower is this business of who pays what to ride a presidential train. because by this time the trains were exceeding 20 passenger cars in length. you had president, you had his staff, you had newspaper reporters, you had other politicians that were invited.

and one of your quotes in your book says, one of the conductors on one of these trips said, he spent more time working as a detective rather than a conductor. do you want to talk a little bit about what he meant by that? >> well, people would drink more than they should, and they'd get gassed, as the word implies, and they would do some strange things. i remember on one train in particular, they did not want to have any spirits on board when the train left washington, but people started demanding it. so they stopped at the commissary in charlottesville, virginia, and loaded it up. and that caused people to get

loaded. and there was one story about one of the -- it wasn't a secret service man. i think it was a military type of some kind. came out in his compartment, and there's no polite way to say this. he was dressed in his underwear. [ laughter ] and they had to get him back in that compartment very quickly before the powers that be saw that person. eisenhower's body was up in a baggage cart. he wanted to be buried just like any other soldier in a gun metal casket in the baggage car. and mamie was in the private car at the rear of the train with her family. david eisenhower and his wife

julia eisenhower, all kinds of problems cropped up with this is supposed to be a secret move, people are not supposed to know what route the train would take to abilene, kansas. and a certain very smart young reporter familiar with railroads found out what the route was. i won't call his name, but you're looking at him right now. [ laughter ] and all sorts of trouble. finally after the main stop with all the people standing out in the plaza next to the railroad platform, they saw that the word was out. so then they came out, and one of the military people came out and thanked the crowd for showing up. and then it was no longer a

secret. but the funniest story happened, one of the officials riding the train told me that they had not realized that the casket when it was moved on to that baggage car, had to be turned around to be unloaded from the other side of the car when it got to abilene. and they didn't realize that till they were past topeka. but they got into that car and turned it around real quick. so when they got to abilene, everything was hunkydory. >> we're kind of running out of time and i promise we'd run this railroad efficiently. so, here we have president truman standing on the rear platform of the magellan. you'll see the presidential seal that bob referred to earlier below him, using the new

technology of microphones. and he's delivering a speech. president truman very much enjoyed traveling by train and would often take a morning constitutional by just getting off off the car and walk through the railroad yard wherever the train was staying overnight. you'll notice here that president truman would entertain foreign heads of state. in this case, winston churchill, the former prime minister where mr. churchill would deliver the iron curtain speech. president truman accompanied him there by train. cartoons, we weren't going to miss out on that. and here are the campaign trains. this is a good opportunity to talk about a whistle stop and the truman whistle stop campaign. >> this referred to some place,

some city, some town that the train would come in and the engineer would blow the whistle announcing to the public that the president or the candidate is here. and you'd see a crowd like you're showing now, no matter where it was, it's amazing how many people you'd find in a small town when the president of the united states is coming through. but that whistle top phrase came that the engineer would blow the whistle really loud, really long to let the people know the president was coming to town. fpz. >> this is actually a very famous photo where the paper was prematurely published. dewy did not defeat truman. i included it because he's on

the rear platform holding that paper up and has a gigantic smile on his face because he just won election as president. >> it's a first edition of of the "chicago tribune" came out in the late evening of november 2nd, which was the big election he's showing that paper in the st. louis station on november 4th. i think it was made that mistake. and he's showing that paper just passed it to him and so surprised and sooner or later was showing it to rve. >> that's a very famous picture. here's some folks in your report. the reporters doing their job as close to the president as they could.

and doing their filing. we'll move through this quickly because we're running out of time. here's president eisenhower hosting mr. churchhill. you can see that the safety was not a priority for people watching the president give a speech. there's people on the of roof. this is president i'd eisenhower's funeral train. this is the baggage car. he wanted to be in a plain casket and travel as any other serviceman or woman would travel after they passed away. his wish was granted you'll notice the contrast between this and the way they handled president harding's remains when we saw that photo earier. the president johnson actually asked his wife to dpo out and campaign on his behalf in 1964. here she is with her associates

ready to depart on a campaign special. here's president johnson with his wife. in this case, in many other cases, this is one example. they made a lot of give aways, buttons, whistles, other items you could receive when you got on board or handed out to the media or a stop and got to meet with the public. this was a. of the route. it was a southern trip from washington, d.c. to new orleans. it's obviously not to scale and not exactly accurate, but she loved doing it. and president johnson was pleased with the results. i want to conclude today with president bush, who was obviously the name sake of our library here in college station, texas. here he is campaigning. that trip, giving the usual high sign and smiling to supporters.

this is not the train he was on. you can see his supporters right nearby. here's another photo of him. now we'll move closer to the present. back in 2005, we were able to graciously painted a locomotive. he was the 41st president. and here's mr. bush. and this is during the president's funeral train. you'll see that this is the outpouring of emotion was really amazing. i expected it. i was still overwhelmed by the grieving and the support that

president bush had as he traveled from houston to college station, which is about 90 miles. here's a piture of texas. it's a little blurry, i apologize for that. almost the entire population of the town came out and the 4141 was on the head of the train. this is when they revived in college station, texas. there's the locate motive. in front of it is the unit from the corp. of cadets and here's the solemn removal of president's remains from the baggage car. he wanted to travel in baggage car as he was a member of the armed forces. and here's the moment when they are transitions from the staring to carry him to the hearse. and now i want to show you a little video provided by union pacific from the perspective of the locomotive. this is the trip just beginning

in houston. you see the giant american flag hung from the train. that's one of several opportunities for that. here's the fire truck its and the people. you'll see in a moment the people. >> so finally, i want to leave

you with this video, which was provided by union pacific. to explain and commemorate the final trip of president bush. >> what do we want the men and women who work with us to say when we're no longer there. that we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us. we're going to remember you for exactly that and much more. and we're going to miss you. your dececy, sincerity and kind soul will stay with us forever. and the best father, a son or daughter could have.

>> heads down. casket down.

>> and in our grief by this smile knowing dad is hugging robin and hold mom's hand again. if.

>> that concludes our presentation for today. i appreciate your time and i apologize for not having a moment for questions. so bob, i want to thank you again for joining us today and sharing some stories from your book. if you're interested in many, many, many part stories, this is the president travels by train politics, the updated edition available online or perhaps through interlibrary alone or at your local bookstore. so thank you again, bob. any final thoughts? >> thank you. >> i hope you joyed it. ai poll jazz for the little bit of a glitch there in the i.t. that happens. so thank you again. hopefully you'll able to visit george bush library. the locomotive will be placed on

dispolice and inspect it personally. have a great day. bye-bye. weekends on c-span 2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday "american history tv" documents america's story. on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span 2 comes from these television companies and more. including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create centers so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span 2 as a public service. recently on "american history tv," local his toishs shared stories about loudoun county, virginia, during the civil war. here's a preview. >> kornl the colonel is brought

back here in an ambulance. they lay him down in the front hall on a stretcher. this man has just been shot, not even shot through. the bullet is still lodged somewhere in his hip. he's bleeding profusely and blood is pooling on to the wooden floor beneath him. but he's not alone in that house. remember, there are at least a dozen kids of some kind in harrison hall at any given time. and who does the colonel make eye contact with but the young virginia miller. the young woman who is befriended in this house. and she writes that the soldiers were him were trying to find a doctor and prepare a bed upstairs. there was no one there with him. so virginia miller rushes to his side and just takes his hand. there's nothing else she can do

for him, but she can take his hand. eventually after some time, there is space made upstairs for him. the colonel is taken upstairs and made as comfortable as can be made for him. and surprising a lot of people, colonel hangs in there. a day passes. then another day passes. virginia helps him write a letter to his wife back in mississippi. they have small, charming, insignificant conversations for five days, he lingers in this house behind me. as you're looking a at it, it's the second story, and i believe it is the second window from the right. as you're looking at it. that bedroom is where colonel, our b ert, lays for his final hours. but eventually he does pass away from his wounds. and he is at least at that time

accompanied by friends that he has made here in virginia. this death affects virginia miller greatly. and in fact, it affects many people across the south greatly. balls bluff, if it happened later in the war, it would barely be a squirmish. we're talking handfuls of men when you compare it to bigger battles. but for right now in 1861, it's literally the biggest thing that has happened. so it does make a big difference. it makes an impact in the lives of the people here in loudoun. there's a funeral procession taking his body down to the station. there's another parade taking his body home to his wife and his children. >> you can watch this full conversation any time at c-span.org/history.