"Amtrak Joe" No More

[wayman]

But friends and colleagues said that in all the decades Mr. Biden worked in Washington, he never had much of a social life there. He rarely stuck around for an evening fund-raiser or a cocktail party.
“I think he was far more interested in his children than the social whirl,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a longtime Biden friend. “I have to kid him a little bit, because he’s no longer going to be asking, ‘Are we going to finish this vote by 7:45?’ so he can make this mad dash to the train.”

Officials at Amtrak, however, were less enthusiastic about losing their high-profile customer.

“We will miss having Senator Biden as a regular passenger,” said Karina Romero, an Amtrak spokeswoman.

Of course, the Bidens are not selling the home they designed outside of Wilmington, and despite moving to the Naval Observatory I'm sure they'll take what free weekends they can to return to it. Whether they'll get to take Amtrak for old time's sake or be forced by the Secret Service to travel by motorcade, I don't know. The NEC is a fairly protected right-of-way with no grade crossings, and it would be easy to secure a private rail car (not necessarily an actual luxury private car, but perhaps just a spare Amfleet from WAS) if the partial seclusion of Acela First Class isn't sufficient for them and a few agents.

Here's the full article: link. My big question: why is this in the "fashion" section of the newspaper? :blink:

 

[MrFSS]

My big question: why is this in the "fashion" section of the newspaper? :blink:

Because it is becoming very fashionable to take the train!!!

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

I wonder if we'll be able to see the VP residence on Google Earth now!

 

[MattW]

Can anyone REALLY force the VP/P to do anything?

 

[WhoozOn1st]

It'd be way cool, not to mention a PR bonanza, for there to be a special presidential railcar, "Amtrak One." It could be "Amtrak Two" if Joe Biden was using it.

Back when rail was King presidents had special trains. FDR's is still around somewhere, and IIRC there still exists an abandoned station under a New York city hotel that was built for his use.

 

[wayman]

It'd be way cool, not to mention a PR bonanza, for there to be a special presidential railcar, "Amtrak One." It could be "Amtrak Two" if Joe Biden was using it.
Back when rail was King presidents had special trains. FDR's is still around somewhere, and IIRC there still exists an abandoned station under a New York city hotel that was built for his use.

Here's some information about FDR's U.S. Car No. 1, now at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami (and designated a National Historic Landmark).

Armor-plated with 5/8-inch steel on the car’s roof, floor, and sides and fitted with three-inch thick windows and two escape hatches, the refurbished car weighed 285,000 pounds, double its original weight. U.S. Car No. 1 is the heaviest railcar ever built in the United States. Security removed the name Ferdinand Magellan from the sides of the car and only "Pullman" remained, making the coach resemble, from a distance, an ordinary private car. For the remainder of World War II, this rolling fortress moved under the code word "POTUS" for President of the United States. POTUS had the right-of-way over all other rail traffic.

Lots of fascinating history on that page.

Wikipedia says FDR traveled 50,000 miles aboard this car between 1943 and 1945, and that Truman traveled in it 28,000 miles during the 1948 campaign alone.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

A-HA!! Googled around and found this:

Matt Lauer Shows Us FDR's Secret Train

In the video a Metro North guy explains a few things about the train, and "Track 61" under New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

EDIT: The railcar in the video is clearly not the one seen in wayman's link above, but an auxiliary to it. Also, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (seen in the video) is author of "Team of Rivals," a book about Lincoln's cabinet which is being much discussed these days as president-elect Barack Obama puts his own team together. Read it shortly after it came out in late 2005, and recommend it, though Goodwin has a meandering style I found annoying at times.