ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The rail car President-elect Barack Obama will ride to Washington for his inauguration contains the trappings of a fine hotel or yacht, with painted walls, cherry wood, brass Pullman lamps and modern amenities for a comfortable ride.
The Georgia 300, a shiny blue car built in 1930, can hold six to eight people comfortably for Saturday’s ride from Philadelphia. The leased car is plush and upholstered with a kitchen and two living areas as well as a bedroom and dinning room.
“It is modernized and upgraded, but it doesn’t show that,” said Jack Heard, who owns the rail car. “It still displays the grandeur of the 1930s.”
The car was first built by Pullman Standard for the Southern Railway, when the car was known as the General Polk and used by railroad officials.
Georgia Railroad later acquired it in 1954, and Heard, who is president of First Coach Rail Inc., bought it in 1986. It was a prized purchase for a man who recalls seeing the car as a boy in Atlanta.
Heard has made a series of electrical and plumbing upgrades to the car over the years.
“It had deteriorated and I completely rebuilt it,” said Heard, of Fernandina Beach, Fla.
“There is a dining room that seats between six and eight and offers full meal service, an observation room, an open rear platform, and TV/VCR, stereo, terminal and cellular phone services,” said Withers, author of “The President Travels by Train: Politics and Pullmans.”
During the day, the car can comfortably accommodate eight passengers, and at night it sleeps six in its compartments.
The Georgia 300 was used as a support car in 1992 by George H.W. Bush during his campaign.
“I guess they liked the car, and it was tapped again to be used for the Clinton campaign in 1996 as his personal car and it just kept on,” Heard said.
It also was used during Sen. John Kerry’s campaign in 2004.
Obama is already acquainted with the rail car, which he used in April on a whistle-stop tour from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Pa.
Obama’s 135-mile tour from Philadelphia to Washington is meant to mirror President Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 journey by train for his inauguration.
By BRIAN WITTE
Vice president-elect Joe Biden and President-elect Barack Obama greet the crowd at Wilmington, Del., from the back of private car “Georgia 300.” The observation car was coupled to the end of a special 10-car Amtrak train provided for Obama’s whistle-stop tour from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 17, 2009. Crowds thronged Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor to get a glimpse of the train on its 137-mile journey. Biden joined the trip at Wilmington after addressing the thousands gathered at a park near the train station earlier that day. Obama’s special train evokes the spirit of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train of 1861. TRAINS Magazine’s Amtrak reporter, Bob Johnston.
