I recently got the Lionel LCCA Lincoln Funeral train and love it. I realize some people think it's a morbid topic, but that model made me look into funeral trains in general: McKinley's is interesting, Stalin's (the loco was bright red - how appropriate), Churchill's . . . Eisenhower's seems to have been the last before aircraft took over the duty - and arguably one nearly as famous as Lincoln's - FDR's. More people saw this train and paid their respects at stations along the way than had seen Lincoln's, but things being what they were then, it was a smaller portion of the American population.
So I changed plans for a few projects and my next will be making a model of this train. Part of this is because I have just about all the "parts" now.
Amazon provided me with FDR's Funeral Train - only a few pictures, but lots of detail. Like Lincoln's, the "FDR funeral train" was pulled by many different locos over its course across many different railroads' lines. I've decided to model it as it left Warm Springs, GA (where FDR died) on the morning of April 13, 1945, to return FDR's body to Washington DC.
On that morning it was pulled by two Southern "light Pacifics" - numbers 1262 and 1337. I'll research those some more but I hope the Lionel Southern Crescent (mine's already repainted black) will do - they were rather small Pacifics (the Legacy Southern Crescent is over an inch shorter and smaller than the Legacy Blue Comet - I guess that makes it "light"?) and it looks about right compared to the photos. Seven Pullman cars including FDR's armored, 142 ton car (coincidentally, I have seven bought used to repaint for another, now cancelled, project), a diner, a baggage car converted to communications/cypher car, and end loader car to car four secret service '38 Cadillacs, baggage, etc.
This is a long term project - I will work on it on and off for over a year, I expect. I inte d to do the interiors, etc. Eleven cars and two locos in all. An advantage with respect to "this is too morbid" point of view: by removing one car I will get the "normal" FDR presidential train (officially called "US One" -- a forerunner of Air Force One, but referred to be the railroads just as POTUS for Pres of the US) -- remember, Truman was the first Pres to routinely travel by aircraft - so this train was, basically, the ultimate and final "US One" train. Very cool!
If anyone knows details about Southern's "light Pacifics" and specifically numbers 1262 and 1337, I'd appreciate the info. The book gives me the names, interior arrangements, and colors of decor, etc., of all the other cars on the train. But it has just one picture, and a few sentences on the "light Pacific" locomotives.
