A model of the Lincoln Funeral Train was built by well-known modeler Wayne Wesolowski. IIRC, Kalmbach was a financial contributor to the project. The diorama featured a bugler modeled in the image of Gordon Odegard, who was an editor for many years. IIRC, the diorama was displayed around the country for a few years. I thought it ended up at Illinois Benedictine University, where Wayne Wesolowski was a chemistry professor.
Whistle stop campaigns don’t have to be part of presidential elections. I remember at least one Illinois governor running such a campaign in the 1980s.
Anybody remember the Peanut car made by Walthers in honor of the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976? Anyone actually build one? Or how about Carter’s 1976 Campaign Headquarters, which was located in the Plains, Georgia train station. Drawings, complete with Carter posters printed in several scales, were published in a MR at the time, and drew a few angry letters.
I also remember seeing a photograph taken in the 1970s, of a campaign advertisement painted on the wall of a building. The ad was for a candidate who defeated late Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley in one of his early campaigns. The election in question was held in the 1930s. And the sign was still there forty years later.
I remember going down to the station in Winona and seeing Harry Trumman talk from the observation car of a train on the Millwaukee road. I keep thinking I should model that, but I have not done the research to see what car it was and if there is a model of it anyplace. I am embarrased to admit I don’t even remember what the engine was.
I’ve got a Lionel billboard exhorting voters to vote “Straight DemoCATic”, with cat pictures. Also some station billboards supporting Slats Grobnick (alter ego of Mike Royko) for judge. Both of which are quite tongue in cheek.
Election related billboards can be a good way to date a period layout for visitors, who might not pick up on the finer points of when this or that gas station used this or that logo (or price per gallon, another common way to fix a date that visitors will comprehend).
Of course this suggests you have visitors who have some sense of even very recent US history.
I don’t have anything political on my layout, as my Santa Fe is set in a “perfect world” setting where politicians are actually busy doing their jobs rather than hanging around railroad yards or any place else. By doing their jobs I don’t include standing on street corners, in bars, or anything else other than in their offices.
I wasn’t very old at the time, but I do remember Mom taking me to see Harry Truman at Framingham MA. Framingham was a real out-in-the-boonies whistle stop some 15-20 miles west of Boston in those days. Half the land in town was still farmed, although we did have a GM assembly plant and Dennison Paper for industry. There was a big crowd. Truman spoke from the open deck of a heavyweight observation car. There were loud speakers on the roof of the observation. Big crowd, the men in suits, the women in skirts or dresses. Main Street Framingham crossed the tracks at right angles, with the RR station right on Main Street. The grade crossing was protected with hand cranked gates, painted with black and white diagonal stripes. It didn’t get flashers and crossbucks until later. It was a double track line, the “inland” line to New York that ran out thru central MA and down thru Hartford. I can’t remember which railroad owned it, could have been NYC, or B&A, or New Haven. It wasn’t B&M.
It seems that everyone here is focused on NATIONAL campaigns that would time-freeze a layout. Why not utilize a state election format- " Vote for Hap E. Golukky for Governor", that could be more flexible in a time frame sense ? Your avoid annoying friends who may see politics differently, maintain era flexibility, and have a little fun at the same time!!! Cedarwoodron
There is a museum in Ohio that has one carved out of wood. The detail is amazing. There are many other trains carved as well. I was there as a kid, a long time ago.
