Next month marks the 47th anniversary of the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy. Many of us who are old enough remember watched his funeral train, operated by Penn Central transport him and his family from New York to Washington, DC.
What were your rememberances? Did you get the opportunity to see the train?
Share your experiences here.
My Mom took home movies of the funeral train at South Elizabeth, NJ, which is just south (railroad west) of Elmora Tower. Two GG1’s, and I want to say (but am not sure), that there were 21 cars in the consist.
The Penn Central station at Elizabeth NJ, was the scene of a tragic accident when a northbound Penn Central passenger train struck and killed a number of funeral train observers who were standing on the tracks as Senator Kennedy’s train was passing in the opposite direction.
I was home from college, and the TV was turned on for it (it was rare that the TV was on during the daytime). I just emember the 2 GG1s pulling it, and IIRC they were labled for the PC.
Cronkite kept calling them diesels.
Oh, don’t be too hard on ol’ Walter. The first time I saw GG1’s I thought “Wow! Look at those old 30’s diesels! I didn’t think there were any around anymore! Those things are cool!”
Hey, it was 1975 and I wasn’t a railfan yet. What did I know?
At least I knew 30’s Art Deco when I saw it.
Excerpt from The Last Salute
http://www.history.army.mil/books/last_salute/Ch28.htm
During the first minutes of Wednesday, 5 June 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, while campaigning for nomination as candidate for the Democratic party in the coming Presidential election, was shot and critically wounded by an assassin in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Senator Kennedy was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, but intensive efforts failed to save his life. He died at 0144 (Pacific daylight time) on 6 June.
As it became less and less likely that the medical efforts to save Senator Kennedy would succeed, his brother, Edward, a brother-in-law, Stephen Smith, and a close friend, John Seigenthaler, outlined a funeral and burial plan. The plan called for a requiem mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the movement of the senator’s body to Washington, D.C., by train, and burial in Arlington National Cemetery, all to take place on Saturday, 8 June. Ethel Kennedy, the widow, approved this outline shortly after her husband’s death. The family then completed plans to take Senator Kennedy’s body to New York City…
In New York City, where Senator Kennedy’s body lay in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, long lines of people passed by the bier until 0500 on 8 June, when the cathedral was closed to the public in preparation for the pontifical requiem mass. Invitations to the mass had been extended by the Kennedy family and its representatives to more than 2,000 persons, including President and Mrs. Johnson, Vice President and Mrs. Hub
I watched it live on TV in Australia.
It was one of the first live broadcasts of news from overseas.
The GG1s had been repainted into PC black for the occasion and I think all the cars had PC decals.
M636C
And there were two gg1s in case one failed.
On June 8, 1968, the 21 car funeral train of Robert F. Kennedy left New York City for Washington, DC. The train was led by GG1 number 4901 with number 4903 trailing, and ended with Penn Central open-platform business car number 120 carrying the body of the late Senator.
A three car pilot train pulled by GG1 number 4932 ran ahead of the funeral train and GG1s numbers 4900 and 4910 followed light as back-up motive power.
At Elizabeth, NJ, the crowd moved onto the tracks to get a view of the special train, just as “The Admiral”, heading to New York City from Chicago, was rounding a curve. “The Admiral’s” GG1 sounded its horn, but some of the people in the crowd did not clear the track in time and sadly two were killed and four seriously injured.
It was sad enough anyhow and then the deaths on the tracks! In Vietnam I heard about the murder on the radio and read about the “Penn Central Railroad” in the Stars & Stripes newspaper.
Being a very young rail-fan of 11 at the time, remember the NYC area news crying how deporling for the railroad to load his remains in a rusty old baggage car. Remember the news casters of the day turned their noses up over the who train, an instult to take him home in a junk train. That is the point I remember. The only TV my family could afford was a old tube based B&W set, couldn’t tell paint from rust, all the same shade of gray to me.
I was watching at this time and seem to remember what looked like a baby being tossed into the air. I don’t remember anything ever being said about it at the time, but, I may have just missed the news broadcast that evening.
I remember they had a camera mounted on the rear car of the train and ever so often, they would switch to that camera. You could see the track receding as the train moved forward. I was 11 at the time also. I do remember them showing the two GG-1’s.
Excerpt from L.A. Times, Aug. 29
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0830-lopez-romero-20150829-column.html
In June, Juan Romero did something he hadn’t done in decades. He celebrated his birthday, going out to dinner with his family in San Jose.
“I always dreaded when June was coming up,” said Romero, 65, who has struggled for most of his adult life to let go of his crippling memory of an American tragedy.
It happened just after midnight on June 5, 1968. Robert F. Kennedy had won the California presidential primary and made his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Romero was a 17-year-old busboy…
He worked at the hotel after school and had delivered room service to Kennedy earlier in the week. He knew he’d never forget the way Kennedy treated him and the pride he felt, and now he wanted to congratulate him as the candidate made his way through a kitchen service area. Romero reached out, took Kennedy’s hand, and watched him slump to the floor as gun blasts echoed.
The black-and-white photos of that moment, by Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times and Bill Eppridge of Life magazine, are as haunti
Hi, I read your post about the Robert F kennedy funeral train. You wrote your mother took some 8 mm film in South Elizabeth. I am a Dutch professor and photographer and I am working on a book about that day. I’d love to see this movie. I will gladly compensate the potential expences you need to make in digitizing this film. 2 days ago, I posted my query about the RFK funeral train, under name of Treini. I hope we can get in touch. My full name is Rein Jelle Terpstra, email: mail@reinjelleterpstra.nl www.reinjelleterpstra.nl Thank you very much. Best regards, Rein