Greetings family, friends, and train buddies! Although my brief encounter with today's memorable character was more than seven decades ago, I still have a clear memory of that morning in Niles with my dad.......Bill
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Memorable Character
HARRY S. TRUMAN - POTUS
Originally built in 1929 as one of six similar private railroad cars named for famous explorers, the Ferdinand Magellan was specially equipped to handle President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s physical disabilities and was the first passenger railcar built for the use of a President since a special car was built for Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The Ferdinand Magellan was positioned at the tail end of a Presidential train when President Harry S. Truman traveled more than thirty thousand miles on three whistle stop tours across the country delivering nearly three hundred and fifty speeches from the railcars custom designed rear platform.
The President made several whistle stops in the Bay Area and I crossed paths, or more accurately “rails”, with our 33 rd President on a memorable morning in 1948 when dad took me to see him at the Niles depot. I can still picture the sizable crowd gathered to hear what the President had to say including a small but loud and rowdy sign carrying group that created enough of a fuss that the President and First Lady were allowed only a brief appearance on the rear platform before being hustled back inside the protective heavily armored historic Pullman Car and hastily pulled into the comparative safety of Niles Canyon. I don’t know if the incident in Niles made the national news, however I guess it’s safe to say that Truman’s missed opportunity to speak in Niles didn’t appear to negatively impact his reelection.
Ferdinand Magellan, U.S.Car No.1, the temporary traveling home of President’s Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, is a 142-ton Pullman Car that was rebuilt in 1942 with bullet-proof glass, escape hatches, 5/8 inch steel plate siding, and is a National Registered Historic Site on display by the Gold Coast Railroad in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
-Bill
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