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affordable internet. so homework can just be homework. cox, connect to compete. >> cox, along with these television companies, supports c-span 2 is a public service. >> now i would like to introduce our special guest today, bob withers., he's 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. it came out in the first edition in 1996. it is subsequently been updated several times. in 2018 was re-released by echo point books and media. i believe it's the third and fourth addition of the book. bob himself was a journalist by trade. and for 38 years worked for the huntington herald dispatch in huntington, west virginia, where he currently lives. he has a b. a. from martial university. while

he was in college he worked summers for the no railroad, that actually is how i got to know bob. i interned at the museum in baltimore, maryland. our mutual interest and admiration for the piano got us together. i welcome bob and i will begin the presentation now. one of the programming notes, so, understand that all presidents use train to travel around and still doing some occasions. we picked seven presidents because there's 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 are 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 all under that very much. there are three main i guess pieces of presidential train

travel. the campaign, probably most familiar with. while in office. and then after the president passes away. we are gonna move from president to president talk about all three of those. even though it may be a little bit out of chronological order, it'll 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. we are 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, john quincy adams, and who was first and why there's difference between them? >> well, actually, john quincy adams was the first, it was after he was president. 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 to massachusetts several ways, steamboat, road. they got to baltimore, the railroad had just started with cars being pulled by horses. he had a horse and wagon but they put up on a flat car and hauled him about seven miles from baltimore to his relay house. and then they lead his horse and wagon off the flat car and went the rest of the way on the

road. that is possibly, well, definitely, it's the first piggyback operation anyone ever saw. piggyback means truck trailers placed on flat cars and when they get to where they're going, a truck picks them up, takes them off the flat truck. very few people know that that first piggyback operation took place in 1830. >> yeah. >> andrew jackson was the first sitting president to ride a train. he went out to -- elliott city, maryland by horseback. and when he started back he got to a crossing where

the railroad cars, steam cars, because by then the steam locomotive was part of the train. he got on that steam car and rode seven or eight miles back. and he was astonished that the train was traveling so fast. 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 are looking here, ladies and gentlemen, at what are called in light cars, these cars are the baltimore museum in baltimore, maryland. you may have seen these before because they were, both of these specific cars were used in the movie, amistad, which feature john quincy adams traveling aboard these very cars. which leads me to another item, bob, the first railroad wreck in the united states also

involve john quincy adams in 1833. do you want to talk a little bit about that? >> well, i have to look at my book here, i don't member too much about it without looking at it. -- the first major railroad accident in the united states on friday november 8th, 1833, he was riding across new jersey towards washington. halfway between high town -- an unheard of speed of almost 25 miles per hour. >> right. >> caused an axle in his coach to break, the cars careening down the embankment, adam's coach remained upright, and no one in it was hurt. but the one just behind his with 24 passengers was overturned and two men were killed instantly. 15 were injured. a woman in a child were mutilated beyond expectation of recovery. >> this is from a contemporary

report, bob, correct? >> correct. >> okay, so, quincy adams, even though he was not the first sitting president to ride, he was certainly involved in several early milestones in presidential train travel. unfortunately, the railroad wreck is one of the ones that is most notable, because the 25 mile per hour travel with something that was very very unusual for that time from that era. by the way, bob referenced journals, if you look at the picture we are looking at right now, on the light cars, down by the wheel, all the cars in the center of the wheel, it is a brown circular item, it is where the car actually sits on the wheel itself. and when the car rolls down the track those could get very hot. so hot that the metal would melt and the car would fall down off the wheel, that is what bob was describing when he said the journal, which is what that is called, it broke and the car

derailed when it fell off the wheels and fell down the embankment. all right. 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 are 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, i apologize for that, that he made 93 individual stops on his rail journey. remember, rail journeys then were not like they were 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. bob, do you want to talk a little bit about mr. lincoln's problems with the

illinois central railroad during that period of time? >> my favorite story is one that i found in a book called lincoln and the railroads, only 227 copies wherever printed. i received the book because of -- interlibrary loan, it is a great thing, i had no idea existed before i got into the research for this book. you can borrow this book from other libraries. if they have them. anyway, i finally got a copy, only 227 copies ever printed. the pages had not even been cut apart. nobody had even read the book. so, i carefully cut them apart, took the book home and copied every page in it. but my favorite story, -- writing for

a newspaper in new york city talks about a conversation he had with abraham lincoln in a boxcar. he and i met accidentally, about 9:00 on a hot sultry evening at a flag stop, that's where the train stops, somebody there to be picked up or dropped off, it's not a regular stop. he'd been driven to the station, and left there alone. the train we intended to take to springfield who is at noon, after waiting for half an hour the train had come, a thunderstorm compelled us to take refuge in a empty car. standing on the sidetracks. there was no buildings of any kind at this type of station. we squatted down on the floor of the car and talked about all sorts of subjects. it is an in there that he told me that when he

was clerking in a 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, i took a long time to persuade myself that i was. now, to be sure, i am convinced that i'm good enough for it, but in spite of it all, i am saying to myself every day, it is too big thing for you, you will never get it. mary todd lincoln, wife, insists however that i'm gonna be a senator and the president of the united states to. these last words fell to the roar of laughter around his knees and shaking all over with mirth at his wife's ambition. just think, he exclaimed, of such a sucker as me.

>> 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. if you read deeply into any of the stories that are written about him, like you have just done, you'll see that he did 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, oftentimes, gotten him to where he ultimately landed. later on in this talk we're gonna talk about a couple other first ladies that played a similar role in the lives of their husbands, the presidents. one other thing, bob, could you talk a little bit about what it was like to travel on a train during lincoln's time? you know, we often think in contemporary terms about the comforts that we all enjoy in an automobile,

an airplane, a train was air conditioning, the comforts of modern era. can you talk a little bit about what it was like for president lincoln, even after he was elected, for example, during this journey he took from springfield to d. c.? what was it like for him to be on board a train back then? >> i'll tell you, that is, even before my time, so, i'm not sure how it would've worked out, except the cars were wooden, a lot of them had coal stoves or wood stoves to keep warm in the winter. there was no such thing is air conditioning. no such thing as reclining seats or rotating seats. it was very, sort of like, i guess, you've seen movies of people riding on stage coaches. it couldn't have been much better than that. >> agree, and then for light there was obviously no electricity so these candles. >> candles or oil burning lights.

>> and those kind of open flames on a wooden railroad car were often quite dangerous, people were very nervous about traveling and spilling the oil or perhaps dropping a candle on the wooden car. and we won't go into recounting those problems, but certainly that era of train travel from the 18 60s probably into the 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 as early as the 1900s, passenger cars were being made out of steel. they were much more substantial and much safer. >> right, agreed, agreed. that is what we use today. so, moving to a little bit more somber a subject, bob, we are 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 it 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, 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

would have to get the flowers off the rails before the train could proceed. and back in the days when embalming was not the exact science that it is now, they would have to carry materials and 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 him, his body, over to illinois for burial. >> we're looking at a picture now, bob, of a broader image of the funeral train. you'll notice the decorations that festooned the outside of the train with the different bunting, the flags, and i'm gonna move to another pictur here which is a little bit more of a close-up 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. you see the locomotive itself is quite

small compared to modern standards. for the era, this was the top-of-the-line transportation. we are gonna move on now to theodore roosevelt, otherwise known as the bull moose. his presidency of course began suddenly with the assassination of william mckinley. 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

paralance. he would be the guy that sucks the oxygen out of the room when he walked in. so bob, in your book, you talk about a conundrum for roosevelt. he obviously enjoyed train travel and traveled extensively. he also is the first president to fly. in an airplane. and of course that was after his administration. when he traveled for 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 speech was like and how it

unfolded when the train arrived? >> well, 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. 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 hearing 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 stance, i don't have anything else 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, he did what he said he was gonna do. >> did the president, or the candidate in this case, would sometimes debark from the train walk through the crowd, correct? >> yes. >> and what was security like back then in the tr era? >> well, not very good. as a matter of fact, there is a story, it's not about teddy roosevelt himself but about tom dewey. his train stopped at some city, i forget now where it was, somewhere in western kentucky, i think, he was campaigning against harry

truman. and the engineer of the train, i had uncoupled from the train and moved ahead against water in the tank. and then when he came back and coupled the train, the train started inching backwards. people were afraid, someone was gonna get killed or hurt or run over by the reverse movement of that train. there was a bmo police officer named ernest chapman who very quickly reached up and pulled a lever that put the brakes on the train. and stop people from getting hurt or killed by that reversal, the reverse movement. it was, in a way, i guess, from roosevelt time on up that it was the best way to find out what a man is, or a man looks like, what a man thinks like, but it did have its own dangers. >> it absolutely does, it still does today. as we'll see when we get to the union pacific

video, there's a couple of clips of people standing in it. and respecting president bush as he moved to college station on his final train trip, you'll notice some people are standing dangerously close to the tracks which is something we would definitely discourage. a couple of other things, bob, when we are talking about tr, in 1906 in your book you discuss the cost of all of this. it's something we really haven't touched on yet. obviously, the railroads can't do this for free. if you are traveling well over 20,000 miles there is expenses associated with that. so, in 1906 congress passed an appropriation for the presidential travel. do you want to talk a little bit about that? >> i have a much better story concerning that. >> okay. >> with calvin coolidge. calvin coolidge was a very frugle man. some would say he was -- and he did not like the idea of having a special train for the president. he says, so you can put my car on the rear of the train, a regular train, but don't do a special train. well, he took off in december of 1927, i think it is in chicago, there

were two places and that city. he decided he would go in a regular compartment, in a regular sleeping car, in the capital -- i believe the name of the car was the president grant, of all things. and he would eat in the diner, sleep in that compartment. he found out before long, these were 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 who walked past

throughout the train, and people would come walking along the aisle and look in there and gawk at him. and he did not like that. he would use 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, was your coffee all right? he just said, yes. and then later he asked his wife, i wonder why he would say that? what he thought there might even something wrong with it? he made another stop, he talked about his frugal habits, he was very frugal in his speech to. i forget where the stop was, i think it was in ohio on another trip east. the secret service men came in and said there's a lot of people out here that want to hear from you. gathered around the car, which was on

the street right there. and finally, he came out, 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, goodbye. >> they heard from him, bob. he was a man of economy in his speech as well, there is no doubt about that. so, in the image we're looking at now, it is not a mistake, it's actually called the stereoscopic image, it is designed to provide depths of field if you're wearing the proper eye glasses to see that. the stereo means that each eye would see one side of it, with the glasses on you would see a very deep field. you 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 is leaning forward because he's missing something that's a more modern invention, we'll talk about it in a moment. that is a voice amplification or a pa system, that's what they call it now. so, all of this campaigning that was done in this era was shouting it out. and 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 were not good at projecting your voice, or, you could even call it yelling, people couldn't hear what you had to say. anything you said didn't make much difference because people didn't hear it. especially reporters wanted to crowd 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 can 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, when roosevelt campaigned in 1900 as a vice presidential candidate, the cost of that campaign trip was $118,000. there was no money to pay it. there is a deep sense of embarrassment in the republican party and president roosevelt. 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 will, excuse me, will move a little bit ahead. this

is another example of the stereoscopic image and the way that trains were decorated, as bob mentioned earlier, the flowers that were placed on the rails 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 hard-core railroad or would appreciate that, but certainly the people who are riding on the train loved it. now, i want to move to a president that you probably might not expect to see in this presentation, warren harding, 1920, 1923, he served in office. here he is on the back of a car as tradition would have it, with his wife. and an associate. they are about to go on a trip. the reason i picked president harding, of course, all the presidents are covered in the book by 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 hot. the reason i mention warren harding is that 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 and alaska as this train wound towards the location of the last -- before we get to that, harding enjoyed something that president teddy roosevelt and even president wilson did not, that is amplification of his voice. by this time in the late teens and

early 19 twenties, the at&t actually installed a voice application system, 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, called it a front porch campaign where people came to him rather than them going to him, i mean, i'm going to them, excuse me. and 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 -- he loved to ride in the locomotives. on several occasions, pictured riding in the cab of a locomotive. the alaska train was a steam train and he actually ran it for several miles. under careful guidance from an engineer standing right beside him. i would really like to mention one thing that happened to him before he became president, in 1820, he did not make very many campaign trips. he did make one. and as he was coming down the railroad between parker's bergh and -- he was at a small stop called mel wood. he wasn't supposed to stop there but a spurring of some kind, equalizer spray, under his private car, it broke. and it de railed of the car. wrote across a trestle and got 900 feet without going into the creek or the ohio river. the car was bouncing around, -- it was crushing tires, but it didn't actually leave the track until it is on 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, the car was bouncing around. and they came out to see what had happened. they viewed the rock, 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 to use what had happened to him as an illustration about how you better let -- keep the other party from the railing this nation. >> so, he came up the campaign slogan on the spot. >> yeah, yeah. >> 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 is obviously the most effective way to travel, he was going from dayton, ohio to san francisco. on board the train they published a newspaper that was specific to the train, four pages long, but they

distributed every day while they were in route. so, the media could be informed of what's candidate, cox of course, was up to and what is thoughts are on any particular issue of the day. as far as i can tell from your book, bob, that's the only time a newspaper was published on board a train what is in motion. is that a fair statement? >> that is correct. that is right. >> okay, they were combining two of your favorite professions right there and one, journalism and railroading. >> right. >> by the way, even though he didn't win the election, mr. cox traveled almost 22,000 miles campaigning by train and

men estimated to have met almost 2 million people during that trip. so, 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. moving on to harding's trip to alaska, bob, this is 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, and here's a couple of other images all move through of this journey through what's then, and somewhat 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 the 1869 as well as with the gold spike? why was that a significant event? >> well, because it symbolized the completion of the railroad line, as the picture in my book where, actually he looks kind of awkward. like i would be if i were trying to drive a spike

into the rail. i think what they did, they let him do it the first rock, and then the railroad people, who did that kind of thing for a living, they wrote it the rest of the way in. it was a very hot day, even in alaska, i think that spelled some trouble for him, it appeared later on. >> right, we're about to move into that. so, after that, he completed the last spike, the plan was to take a train all the way back. actually, from fair banks to seattle, i believe, they took a ship, but then they were going to take a train back to washington, d. c.. on the trip, early on in the trip actually president harding took ill and they diverted to san francisco. 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, it's covered in the

flag which is tradition, but it's being loaded haphazardly into a baggage car to be transported back to washington, d. c.. and i point this out to not because i think they're doing anything wrong, but because this process of moving the remains of a deceased president by train has evolved a lot from the era of lincoln, now we're looking at harding and we are about to move into the fdr and later eisenhower in

george h. w. bush. it is a much more solemn occasion than you see in this photo here. which i wanted to share with you as a part of contrast, what we're gonna be talking about here in a little bit. so, now, i would like to move back to franklin roosevelt, the men who spent an enormous amount of time on a train while he was president.

in fact, in your book, you talk about, you mentioned that he traveled about 243,000 miles on 399 distinct trips. but you also call the roosevelt administration and his travel on train a curious, 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 with the japanese on december 7th. i think it was early in 1942, they gave him especially modernized and reequipped car. it was then, i believe it was ferdinand mcallen. it was one of six cars that they built, this particular one came out in 1929. and it was all because of world war ii. reduced from 5 to 4, the large dining room an observation lunge, it was still armor plating, three to an inch thick. besides, the floor, the roof, and the ends making the car bulletproof and bomb proof. it was three and bulletproof glass which was through the

windows which could stop a caliber machine gun fire. there were escape at its in case the thin derailed or fell off a bridge, however. escape ashes in the observation lounge ceiling. and on the side of the car, near the center of the car, -- special wheels were installed to support the extra way. by the way, that we increased from 80 pounds to hundred and 42 and a half, it was the heaviest ever built, or rebuilt. now, there is one stage -- it took 6000 pounds of ice in bunkers to keep the car cool, it would have to stop along the way when they ran out of ice. every room had a

telephone. when the train was standing the telephone was plugged into a train side outlet. when the train was moving it is connected to a communications car ahead of the train that could put the president in touch with anyone, any world leader, anywhere. there was the backdoor that lead from the -- to the rare platform. weighing 1500 pounds, it can only be open from the inside. only the word coleman -- and then later, the president of the united states seal, the presidential seal was on the rear window. the ruling was made higher because roosevelt had polio, and his legs didn't work. the higher platform would help him hold himself up. he didn't want anyone to know. he did everything in the world to keep

people from finding out. later, an elevator was installed on the rear platform so that they could wheel him, and privacy, up to the elevator, the elevator would go up, and then on the rear platform. the ownership was transferred from -- and it is called u.s. cart number one. the only market of it, number one. roosevelt traveled 55,000 miles, but truman traveled almost 35,000 miles on it. i have traveled in it three times. -- matter-of-fact, somebody had the bright idea one time, he was on his way to dedicate a new college or something and they put on the -- and that would leave a very small amount

of room between the end of the car in the bumper car. doing a stop -- not very many people came to close enough to see him or hear him. it would never get it that way again. so, the last time the car was used was when she went to connecticut on january 21st 1954, the nuclear sub -- and then, of course, ronald reagan used the car in 1984, october 12th, 1984, on this trip through western ohio. the car's water system wasn't working. every time you had to use the bathroom we had to move forward into the private car. >> and that car right now, bob, is on display where?

>> in miami, florida. >> so, if you're interested in seeing something that is a part of presidential history, that is where you can go see it. >> exactly right. >> so, 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 they're playing cards and entertaining guests who were aboard the train and serving them drinks, 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 gusts preferred rather than the ones that were offered. also, a couple of things that you might find interesting about president roosevelt, he was quite superstitious about is train travel. he never started a train trip on the 13th of the month, and he also never left on a friday. if he had to, he would always leave ten minutes before the strike of midnight or ten minutes after into the

saturday. and finally, bob, one other item on president roosevelt, one of the interesting stories you tell about roosevelt and later truman and eisenhower is this business of who pays wet to ride a presidential train? by this time, the trends were exceeding 20 passenger cars in length, you had president, you had his staff, you had newspaper reporters, yet other politicians are 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. you want to talk a little bit about what he meant by that? >> well, people would drink more than they should, they would get gassed, that's the word, as it implies. and they would do some strange things, i remember one time the eisenhower funeral train, they did not want to have any

spirits on board when the train left washington. but people started demanding, so they stopped and in virginia and loaded it up. and that caused people to get loaded. there was one story about one of the, roosevelt secret service man, i think it was a military type of some kind, came out of his compartment and there is no polite way to say this, he was dressed in his underwear. and they had to get him back in the compartment very quickly before the powers that be saw that person. a lady was riding that train. eisenhower's body was -- he wanted to be buried like any other soldier. a gun metal casket in the baggage car. and -- was in the private car in the rear with her family. dave and eisenhower and his wife, julie eisenhower, all kinds of problems popped up. this is

supposed to be a secret move, people were not supposed to know what's route the train would take. and a certain reporter, a smart, young, reporter, -- found out what's the route was. i won't call's name, but you're looking at him right now. and all sorts of travel, after they made a stop, all the people spilling up in the plaza next to the railroad platform. they saw that the word was out, and then they came out, the military people came out and thanked the crowd for showing up. and then it was no longer a secret. the funniest story happened -- one of the officials riding the

train told me that they had not realized that when 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 they got to abilene. they didn't realize that until they were passed pika. they got into that car and turned it around real quick. when they got to is okay. >> we are gonna move there is some slides here pretty quick, bob, we are kind of running out of time, i promise would run this railroad efficiently. so, here we have president truman standing on the rear platform of the magellan, you see the presidential seal that bob referred to earlier below him. using the new technology of microphones. he is delivering a speech, he really enjoyed, president truman very much enjoyed traveling by train and would often take a morning constitutional by just getting

off the car and walking through the railroad yard where the train was staying overnight. you'll notice here that president truman would also entertain foreign heads of state, in this case winston churchill the former prime minister [inaudible] mr. churchill would secretly deliver the iron curtain speech. president truman accompanied him there by train. cartoons of course, we weren't going to miss out on that. here are the campaign trains. this is a good opportunity, bob, talk a little bit about what is a whistle stop? the truman whistle stop campaign? >> a whistle stop 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 is here. you'd see a crowd a lot like the picture you're seeing now, i don't know where it was, it's amazing how many people you would find, even in a small town when the president of the - united states was coming manque de collaboration au through. but anyway, that came conseil municipal de from the fact that they would lévis, le seul représentant de blow the whistle really loud to l'opposition demande un changement d'approche de la part du let the people know the maire lehouillier. 24 heures après president was coming to town. sa sortie, un jeu vidéo produit à québec >> this is actually, this is a s'écoulent déjà à plus de 10000 exemplaires. et avec notre very very famous photo where collaborateur michael lalancette, on revient the paper was prematurely sur le geste déplorable des published. do we did not in condor qui ont détruit le bol d'or après leur victoire. bienvenue au fil québec. fact defeat truman. he is showing this, the only reason i've included is cassis on the rare platform of the magellan bonsoir à tous et bon mercredi. on se tourne vers holding that paper up. of lévis où le course, he has a gigantic smile conseiller de saint-etienne, serge on his face because he just won election as president.

>> it was the first addition, it came out, i guess, in the lee evening of november 2nd, which was the day of the election. he is showing that paper in the st. louis station on november 4th. i think it was -- who made that mistake. anyhow, he is showing that paper on november 4th, his wife had just passed it to him, he was so surprised, and so elated, he had to show it to everybody. >> that is a very very famous picture. here's some folks in your profession, reporters doing their job as close to the candidate where the president as they could with their gear right there. doing their filing. will move through this

rather quickly because i know we're running out of time, here's president eisenhower hosting mr. churchill. eisenhower campaigning, you can see that the safety was not a priority for people watching the president give a speech, there is people on the roof. this is president eisenhower's funeral train. this is the baggage car that bob referenced earlier. he wanted to be in a plane casket and travel is any other servicemen or woman would travel after they passed away. and his wish was granted. here they are, you will notice the contrast between this and the way they handled president harding's remains when we saw that photo earlier. will move pretty quickly through this too, president johnson actually asked his wife, lady bird, to go 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, of course, with his wife. in this case, and many other cases, this is just one example, they made a lot of giveaways, buttons, whistles, other items that you could receive when you got on board or handed out to the media, or when they had a stop and they got to meet with the public. this is a little map of the route, it was a southern trip from washington d. c. down to new orleans. it's not to scale not exactly accurate. she loved doing it. president johnson was very pleased with the results. i want to conclude today with president george h. w. bush, who's obviously the namesake of our library here in texas. here he is campaigning. bob, you're of course on board that trip. and giving the usual high sign and smiling to supporters. another picture of him, by the way, this is not the magellan he is on, he is on a c x x

business car, the podium is provided by the white house. you can see his supporters right nearby. here is another photo of him. now, we're moving to the president, or close to the president, back in 2005 we were able to, the union pacific graciously painted a locomotive, he was the 41st president, in the colorsf air force one. here's mr. bush. they're on the lower right. and this is during the presidents funeral train. you will see that this is the outpouring of emotion, it was really amazing, i expected it but 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 is a picture in napa soda, texas. it is a little blurry, i apologize for that. almost the entire population of the town came out, of course, the 40 1:41 was at the head of the train. this is when they arrived in college station, texas, there is the

locomotive, and in front of it is the volunteers which is a unit in the corps of cadets that texas a&m university. here's the solemn removal of the presidents remain from a baggage car, like president eisenhower, he wanted to travel in the baggage car, because he was members armed forces. here is the moment when they are transitioning from the stairs to carry him to the hurst. and now, i want to show you a little video provided by union pacific of from the perspective of the locomotive. [noise] misses the trip, just beginning. you can see the

giant american flag. that's one of several opportunities for that. there is the fire trucks. [noise] you'll see in a moment the people. [noise] [noise] so, that is -- and finally i want to leave you with this video which was provided by union pacific. it explains and commemorates the final trip of president bush. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> when we want the men and women who work with us to say when we are no longer there? that we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us. they are gonna remember you for exactly that and much more. we are gonna miss you, your decency, sincerity, and kind souls will stay with us forever. the best father, a son, or daughter can have. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [inaudible] heads down.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> and in our grief i just smiled knowing that they're holding mom's hand again. >> and 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 more stories, this is the president travels by train, the updated addition, available online, or perhaps their inter library loan or at your local bookstore. so, thank you again, bob. any final thoughts?

>> thank you. >> i hope you enjoyed it, i apologize for the little bit of a glitch there in the i. t., that happens. thank you again, hopefully we'll be able to visit george bush library, the locomotive will be placed on display later this year. you'll be able to inspect it personally. have a great day, bye-bye.