Nostalgia & History > Photo Essay on RFK Funeral Train

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/robert-f-kennedys-funeral-train-fifty-years-later

Amazing how far we've come as far as access. Photo of people standing and waiting out on the NEC tracks is neat.

Two things I remember as a kid were the people getting killed by another train while standing on the track at Elizabeth, NJ and the news media reporting that the engines (2 GG1's freshly painted for the new Penn Central) were painted black for the funeral train.
Steve B.

stevelv Wrote: > ... I remember as a kid were the people getting killed by another train while standing on the track at Elizabeth, NJ ...

Steve, I had that same vivid memory seared into my 13 year old mind because someone on board the train happened to film that tragedy with a home movie(?) camera. And the sequence made its way onto national TV news reports. I can replay that scene over & over in my mind, and I still shudder...

Don't remember that footage Lance as I was only 6 at the time. You've got to feel bad for the crew who most likely came around the big curve at track speed only to see people standing all over the track. Also notice in the pictures the people on top of the freight cars under the catenary. I vaguely remember also that I think someone got killed doing that somewhere near DC.

Some terrific shots. What city is that with the divided street perpendicular to the tracks? Interesting about the video re-creation in California.

Tominde Wrote:
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> Some terrific shots. What city is that with the divided street perpendicular to the tracks?
> Interesting about the video re-creation in California.

Not NJ. License plates were tan/cream color with black alpha/numeric.

> What city is that with the divided street
> perpendicular to the tracks?

Boy-- you'd think we'd know at a glance,
but I don't get it at all.

C'mon guys - white stoops? Give me a "B"...

Edit: The question was:

> Some terrific shots. What city is that with the divided street perpendicular to the tracks?

and the answer is: the street is North Broadway in Baltimore. I thought people were more aware of Baltimore's white marble front stoop tradition.

Ray



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/18 14:26 by Ray_Murphy.

Yeah PC and the a variety of Federal, State and Local agencies screwed this up terribly.
These photos (very good article and moving photos nevertheless, thanks for posting) do not show how dense some of the track-side crowds were around Newark, Trenton, Wilmington and Baltimore. I watched it on TV as a kid. As I recall a Chicago train, later identified as the "Admiral" upon rounding a curve plowed through a crowd that had trespassed onto an outside main to get closer. The Feds and the Kennedy family forced the PC to stop all trains on the corridor afterward until the special was all the way to DC. There was at least another fatal incident, involving one or more individuals who had climbed on top of a stopped freight train's box car to get a better view and were electrocuted by the 11,000 AC overhead.
Sad day for most everybody back then.

h ttps://youtu.be/OXBpnWe_bJQ

(cut and paste to your browser and close the gap between the first and second characters)

stevelv Wrote:
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> Two things I remember as a kid were the people
> getting killed by another train while standing on
> the track at Elizabeth, NJ and the news media
> reporting that the engines (2 GG1's freshly
> painted for the new Penn Central) were painted
> black for the funeral train.
> Steve B.

That train was the ADMIRAL, a remnant of PRR's East/West Fleet. I suppose the GG1's were painted black for PC's upcoming bankruptcy, if nothing else. The stars were not shining on the United State's railroads then.

The crowds were dense, I had a hard time finding a place remote enough to not be in a crowd so as to witness the passing train. But there were many people there no matter where we tried. Even though it was a hot day I don't recall anyone leaving until the train passed although hours late due to the incident with the Admiral.
It was a sad day.
Gonut