I never knew this was a mystery before. I assumed the car was painted black, but guess I was wrong. Interesting article on the color.
http://www.livescience.com/29433-abraham-lincoln-funeral-train-color.html
I wonder if the color is similar to a tuscan red.
Great story Thanks for sharing.
Nico
Nice post Jake.
Nice find Jake!
Been posted before by Hollywood but I thought it was a good time too add these links to your thread …http://www.leviathan63.com/
and this…http://www.steamintohistory.com/
Corner me if needed I’m overdue for a timeout!
Holy ship - That car has 16 wheels !!
I thought the car was a dark green myself but this is cool news! Thanks for posting!
According to a link on the Kloke Locomotive Works, they are going to go from D.C. to Springfield, Illinois with a funeral train along the original route. So how they gonna do it if some or most of the original routes don’t exist anymore? If this does happen I do hope it travels thru Urbana ,Ohio I will be there!
Soo…the funeral train was a proper Tuscan Red…
The route is pretty much intact, but there are 3 cities along the route that weren’t there in those days. I was at his open house a few weeks ago, and got to climb on, touch, photograph and otherwise mess with his Leviathan and the York locos. Since the period correct oil burning headlight doesn’t meet federal requirements, they have a slide in part for when they need a real light that has, get this, LEDs for light.
The car was originally intended to be Lincoln’s “Railway 1” for him to travel about this rapidly expanding country. They wanted it to be very smooth running, that’s why there were 4 trucks and the car was carried by bolsters between each pair of trucks, not just between each pair of axles.
As a life-long aviator wannabe, I had to find out about the airplane in a heap of wreckage in the back of his property. He didn’t know anything about it as it belongs to his son. “It was supposed to be here for a couple weeks 3 or 4 years ago.” I googled. It’s the remains of a Beech 18. They were made from the 1930’s through the 60’s. I don’t know when that one was made, what happened to it, or why it’s there.