Thanks to all involved for a very successful trip for the Obama Express. It certainly seems that the planets have finally come into perfect alignment for Amtrak and that after many years of benign neglect from both the Clinton and Bush administrations the new team will be MUCH more supportive??

VP-Elect Biden was qouted yesterday saying " we will make sure that Amtrak gets the support it needs to be a railroad all Americans will be proud of". Let's hope they deliver.

The Philly-Wash. trip was surely a good start!! Congratulations to all involved!!!

Ross Rowland

Luke actually owes me BIG-time--he was on my ladder while I had one foot each on the Jersey barrier and the ladder simultaneously. >:-)

HAHA I bet those police officers where wondering what the heck you two where doing.

There was a solid line of media photographers on that Jersey barrier; I was the last one to get a spot there, about two hours in advance of taking the photo. The reality is that anyone in that cordoned-off area had *some* kind of media credentials, be it CNN, USA Today, Kyoto News Service, the college newspaper from Western Kentucky University (Luke's apparent credentials), or even the local high school newspaper. We'd already been screened extensively by the Secret Service, including my having to remove my PRR belt buckle and having a strange photo of the folding table taken by the inspectors to prove my camera was a camera.

I've been waiting for someone else to bring this up. Perhaps a different forum would be better, since this one is more concerned with preservation of artifacts than telling the written or oral history, but am I the only one concerned that the true history of Lincoln's inaugural journey is being rewritten incorrectly for the sake of a smooth narrative for the incoming administration? If I recall rightly from spending the last 24 years in the DC area, Lincoln's inaugural train ran from York, PA down the Northern Central RR (now mostly either abandoned or part of the Baltimore Light Rail line) to Baltimore. There it would have been drawn by horse through the streets of Baltimore, to either Mt. Clare, President St., or Camden station (unfortunately my copy of "Impossible Challenge" is in storage), and then onto Washington via the then Washington Branch of the B&O to their station that was approximately where the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art is today? I'm fairly confident I'm mostly right about that routing, since the NEC in it's current form did not exist until about the time Union Station was built in 1907, with major modifications during electrification in the early 1930's.

Anyway, the corporate media keeps repeating that Obama retraced Lincoln's route to Washington, and that is going to become the generally recognized truth among the great unwashed. Perhaps he did it in the spirit of Lincoln, but certainly not in geographic fact.

Paul and others,

I just fired off a letter to the editors of the Washington Post, chastising them for calling the Georgia 300 a "caboose." Of course, everyone from the AP pool reporters to CNN and NBC made exactly the same boondoggle.

If you wish to pursue this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00709.html

Or maybe you can all correct your own home town newspapers that repeated the AP mistakes.



Fortunately, MY copy of "The President Travels By Train" by Bob Withers is not in storage, but instead is on my desk. It confirms that, pre-inauguration, Lincoln did indeed travel from Philly over the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore to President Street Station in Baltimore. It was the funeral train that went to Harrisburg via York and the Northern Central, and of course there was that trip to Gettysburg via Hanover Junction for a certain speech.

Fortunately, at least one newspaper in America still employs a railfan historian, if only for a weekly column and occasional (or rare) historical insight--and I know he is, because I've met and talked to him:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation ... 8351.story

Personally speaking, do you think that if Obama and/or his handlers were engaging in such a grandiose "rewriting" of history, that such a fact wouldn't already be dominating both the right-leaning part of the "blogosphere" and thousands of corrections being shouted and publicized by detractors of Obama eager to catch him in any flagrant falsehoods? I'm truly as cynical as you can get about both the old administration and the incoming one, and my eyes roll painfully and glaze over at every day's additional overwrought hyperbole on both ends of the spectrum, but at least the history is correct on this one.

Our local paper mentioned that President-elect Obama spoke of our "planet that is warming up from our unsusatinable dependence on oil." As far as I can tell, the entire movement was under wire, yet each of the three trains had a pair of diesels.

Or was the Secret Service keeping its options open, like being able to divert to the B&O or some other route if there was any sort of threat? Still, it would have been good to use electricity to power the special, some of which is generated by hydro power.

Catenary can be subject to all sorts of unexpected power interruptions. The New Haven was once tied up in The Bronx by a clove of garlic that shorted an insulator. Add birds, squirrels and the like and my guess is that the Secret Service felt that two Diesel units were just plain less likely to fail. It would certainly have greatly embarrassed Amtrak if the power had gone out on the inaugural special.

Without entering into all the security-versus-sustainability arguments that can possibly be hypothesized (hell, scrap the limos and Secret Service caravans and helicopters and get him a pedal car, why don't you?), the freak-out factor of the various security apparatuses for this trip was almost insurmountable. As just one example--to "properly" base adequate emergency personnel at Aberdeen required fire departments as far away as southern Pennsylvania to mobilize southward to adequately cover normal duties. I have business dealings with a fire chief up that way, and the weeks of preparation and planning they had to endure for what amounted to one six-hour photo op permanently soured him against the new administration.

It would have taken mushroom clouds sprouting over Wilmington, Baltimore, or DC for anyone to consider detouring this train from its real mission--photo opportunities and staged political rallies for supporters and the media--and honestly, the ONLY way for even an emergency detour off the Corridor between Philly and DC would have been emergency detours south to Cape Charles or south to power plants in southern Maryland--no real connection exists between the ex-B&O and Amtrak. From a security standpoint, this was possibly the worst way to expose Obama & Co. to potential risk and vulnerabilities, and the Secret Service knew it. And as much as various people despise Bush 43, the SS is supposedly dealing with far more threats against Obama, and international terrorists really don't care who the guy occupying the White House is, he's still a target.

That being said, however............. what if the President came to YOUR museum/ride?

(Hey, maybe we can start a rumor that Lincoln rode the EBT business car...... that might make him show up there..........)

The bottom line is that it was a GREAT day for "trains" in general and Amtrak in particular, thanks to the hard work of countless pros and volunteers.

The saturation coverage by the national media was priceless and will pay dividends far into the future.

That's the big picture!

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Sandy;

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I should have remembered that I also have a copy of Withers' book, but I think it's in storage as well. As for rewriting history and pursuing accuracy, how often have any of us come across major or even minor errors in reading coverage of some railroad related event written by someone other than say a Don Phillips, that contains laughable or just stupid errors? Do you really think they care as long as they are regurgitating the talking points from the official source? On to the the next story! Yesterday, AOHell headlined their inaugural coverage as the "44th Presidential Inaugural". Actually, it's the 52nd Presidential Inauguration of the 44th President, but hey, let's not let little facts like that get in the way of a snappy headline.

Cynical fat guy here...IMHO if they aren't boiling water on the head end, its just a really, really long bus. I am much more concerned, since I am in the Southwest, that the new administration look at investment in shortline and regional railroads than Amtrak, although I do consider a national rail passenger system a necessity. It seems to me that, until the downturn of last summer, the biggest rail problem facing the country is capacity-more capacity (read more track to run trains on) means more places to put Amtrak, and quard against hellish service meltdowns. All the downturn did was take it off the front burner, but it is still there.

The other thing? Give mainlines an incentive to pursue loose car business. Do that, and you will really make an impact on highway congestion and vehicular pollution.

The Fourth Estate isn't too bright about any form of transportation. Katie Couric had an interview with a Tuskegee Airman last week, and when they showed combat film of World War II, do you think they showed P51 Mustangs in action? NAW, that would have taken research and/or knowledge. They showed P47 Thunderbolts.

Ah. I hate to be the bearer of the truth, and I really hate to make you eat your words since you are right that many times organizations/the media don't take the time to be historically accurate. Between 1942 and June 1944 the 322nd (the tuskegee squadron marked by their aircrafts red tails) flew and fought in the P-47 thunderbolt, only transitioning to the P-51 in 1944 (like many US fighter squadrons). Yes, they are more commonly associated with the P-51, but they in fact spent most of their time flying the "jug", and also flew in warhawks and aircobras. In fact, if we want to be technical, the term "tuskegee airmen" refers not just to the 322nd with its red tails, but also to four bomber squadrons flying B-25's and B-26's.

If there is one thing worse for the truth than media distortions, it may well be we who are too quick to correct without being sure of that which we are correcting.

Well now, if I am wrong, I stand corrected, and humbly thank you for doing so. I am going to have to read a little more of the history of these brave men.

Best regards,
Kevin