U.S. Affairs: Elder Bush's Funeral Train the 1st in 50 Years

This locomotive numbered 4141 — unveiled in 2005 (shown here) in College Station, Texas, for a special exhibit at George H.W. Bush’s presidential library — will be used to pull his funeral train. (Pat Sullivan/AP) "The locomotive was painted to resemble Air Force One ... 'I might have left Air Force One behind,' [former President George H.W.] Bush quipped during the 2005 unveiling of 4141, a blue and gray locomotive," AP's Will Weissert writes. Today, "that same 4,300-horsepower machine will carry Bush's casket, along with relatives and close friends, for around 70 miles." "The journey through five small Texas towns was expected to take about two and a half hours. It will deliver the casket from suburban Houston to College Station." "There, a motorcade will take Bush to his presidential library at [Texas A&M], where he will be laid to rest at a private ceremony next to his wife, Barbara, who died in April, and his daughter Robin, who died at age 3 in 1953." "The train's sixth car, a converted baggage hauler called 'Council Bluffs,' has been fitted with transparent sides to allow mourners lining the tracks on Thursday views of Bush's flag draped coffin." "It will be the eighth funeral train in U.S. history and the first since Dwight D. Eisenhower's body traveled from the National Cathedral in Washington through seven states to his Kansas hometown of Abilene 49 years ago." "Abraham Lincoln's funeral train was the first, in 1865." "Union Pacific originally commissioned the Bush locomotive for the opening of an exhibit at his presidential library titled 'Trains: Tracks of the Iron Horse.'" "It was one of the few times the company has painted a locomotive any color other than its traditional yellow." "After a brief training session during 4141's unveiling 13 years ago, Bush took the engineer's seat and helped take the locomotive for a 2-mile excursion." "Union Pacific was contacted by federal officials in early 2009 and asked, at Bush's request, about providing a funeral train." "[T]rains were the mode of transportation that first carried Bush to his service as a naval aviator in World War II and back home again." Bush once recalled how he took trains, and often slept on them, during trips as a child with his family: "We just rode on the railroads all the time, and I’ve never forgotten it