Riding the rails with President Bush 41

Like millions of others, I plan to spend at least part of today watching the historic passage of the Bush Funeral Train, scheduled to run this afternoon from Spring, Texas, to College Station, where George H.W. Bush will be buried alongside his wife, Barbara. As they have so many times over the past 150 years, Americans will gather trackside to pay their last respects to a president. 

That flag-waving railroad, Union Pacific, will do the honors as its specially decorated SD70ACe No. 4141, painted to resemble Air Force One and named for the president, leads the way along the 70-mile route. 

Although President Bush wasn’t known for any particular attachment to railroads, this wasn’t the first time his family revived the age-old connection between politics and trains. It happened before, in 1992, when Bush took to the rails three times in his unsuccessful bid for a second term, including a memorable trek through Wisconsin.

Like today’s POTUS train, those ’92 campaign swings tapped into a national vein of memory. I know. I was there. 

To this day I can’t recall how I finagled credentials to ride along on October 31, 1992. I was the editor of Trains, a magazine with zero connection to the national press corps and not even all that well known in its home state. Perhaps it was someone in management at Wisconsin Central, which hosted the train and with which we had a very good relationship. No matter. I eagerly accepted the invitation.

The Wisconsin train ran from Burlington to Chippewa Falls, 278 miles of main line in the heart of the WC system. Bush’s earlier POTUS trains had run September 26-27 on CSX in Ohio and Michigan, and October 20-21 on Norfolk Southern in the Carolinas.

Joining me that day was my friend and former Trains staffer Paul Schneider, then working as a video producer and whom WC had hired to produce raw video of the entire day. If I needed any sardonic asides about the day’s proceedings, Paul was there to provide them.  

The polls weren’t looking good for the president, and there was a somewhat downbeat air of inevitability that morning. However, as we all know by now, the president was relentlessly optimistic, and that vibe was present on the train, even though most of us couldn’t get close to the man except during his speeches. Although the news media had the run of most of the train, Secret Service agents in a rearward vestibule made it clear that the last three cars were off limits.

If anyone else’s spirit animated the POTUS train that day, it was that of Harry S. Truman, whose 1948 presidential bid might have been the high-water mark for campaign trains. We all know the famous photo of Truman, standing on the back platform of a heavyweight observation car, holding up the Chicago Tribune’s erroneous headline that said Thomas Dewey had won. 

Although Truman was a Democrat, the famously bipartisan George H.W. Bush didn’t hesitate to evoke his memory. Bob Withers, aTrains contributor and author of The President Travels by Train (TLC Publishing, 1996; most recently updated by Echo Point Books & Media inn 2017), was along for the campaign swing in Ohio and noted Bush’s affection for the man from Independence. “It was as if the first ’92 train was riding on the signal blocks of Truman’s come-from-behind marathon of 1948,” wrote Withers.

Riding a POTUS train is a rare privilege, so it goes without saying that I was excited when I climbed aboard in Burlington. Four random memories really stand out from that day:

• The train was a beautiful sight, gleaming like a Turtle Wax ad. Up front was brand new CSX Dash 8-40CW 7812, temporarily renumbered 1992, trailed by Wisconsin Central GP40 3000. Strung out behind the diesels were 17 cars from a variety of sources, including the CSX, Chicago & North Western, and Union Pacific executive fleets, plus private car Georgia 300. The president himself rode the rear car, of course, CSX’s business car Baltimore. 

• With the Bush campaign winding down, the on-board press corps seemed smaller than I’d expected. Still, it was fun to get in the buffet line in the news media’s lounge car and find myself grabbing a chicken sandwich next to the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, a frequent Bush critic who nevertheless became a good friend of the president. At Oshkosh, I stepped down onto the right of way to listen to the president’s speech and found myself standing with a very chatty Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor.

• I hope I never become jaded about anything that draws so many people to the railroad. I’ve seen thousands wave as I leaned out Dutch doors of steam excursions or stood on the ground for the passing of specials like Canadian Pacific’s Holiday Train. But in my memory, none of those compares with the exuberance of the flag-waving throngs for Bush’s train, straining for a glimpse of the man.

• The flawless POTUS operation was a great moment for WC, already riding high as one of America’s top regional railroads. Late in the day, I made my way to the upstairs lounge of C&NW’s full-length dome Powder River, where a group of WC managers were high-fiving each other over their company’s performance. If they seemed a bit giddy, they had earned it. 

Although the president desperately wanted to win in Wisconsin, the state went for Bill Clinton a few days later. As I wrote in the February 1993 issue of Trains: “The gloomy weather seemed appropriate as [the POTUS] train churned through dairy country on WC’s main line west of Neenah. Aboard the train, glum Republicans commiserated with a White House press corps exhausted after months on the road. Even with three days left until the election, the Halloween whistle stop felt like too little, too late.”

It was too late. But the result of the election doesn’t dampen my memory of the experience, nor color my appreciation of the man waving enthusiastically from the back platform of the Baltimore as the POTUS train pulled out of Stevens Point. It was an honor to be in George H.W. Bush’s presence.