Thursday 12/6/2018 - President George Bush Sr. Funeral Train
As part of the 41st President, George Bush Sr.'s funeral arrangements, a train was arranged to take him from Spring, Tx to his final resting place at his Presidential Library on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Tx. The route taken was around 70 miles and took the train roughly 2.5 hours to traverse it. President Bush Sr. always had a close relation with the Union Pacific Railroad, so much so that the railroad even painted a new SD70ACe locomotive to commemorate the President's new Presidential Library in 2005. This engine lead the funeral train and is now on display at the library itself.
Emily and I started fairly early in the morning to try to find a spot. We peaked into old town Spring and just caught the tail end of the dignitary train leaving town. This train was powered by the UP 1943 which was painted like the World War II bomber the Union Pacific sponsored. We chose not to give chase, even though we didn't get any photos of the train as the crowds were already getting thick.
We chose to get out of downtown Spring,Tx. The line the train was taking paralleled the HW 99 toll road for a few miles so we followed the highway out of town and was amazed at the amount of people already lining up besides the tracks. We chose a spot at the Rothwood Rd. crossing.
Local law enforcement had officers at every crossing to make sure people didn't put items on the track. Early attempts were made to "keep us x number of feet away" but as more people showed up, people edged up. Luckily we kept an unobstructed view.
It was pretty moving to see everyone out with flags and signs of support. The Union Pacific replaced a door on the car carrying the president with glass in order for everyone to see him, which was a nice surprise. It was surely a train passing that I won't soon forget.
We had hopes to chase the train after it passed but the crowds were too thick and the train was moving at a good clip. Jason Rose and Blake Bogs both also got spots at other road crossings close to our area. We headed to Jason's house just north of Spring to drop off the video footage we all shot for Jason to put together the video seen below.
Emily and I started fairly early in the morning to try to find a spot. We peaked into old town Spring and just caught the tail end of the dignitary train leaving town. This train was powered by the UP 1943 which was painted like the World War II bomber the Union Pacific sponsored. We chose not to give chase, even though we didn't get any photos of the train as the crowds were already getting thick.
We chose to get out of downtown Spring,Tx. The line the train was taking paralleled the HW 99 toll road for a few miles so we followed the highway out of town and was amazed at the amount of people already lining up besides the tracks. We chose a spot at the Rothwood Rd. crossing.
Local law enforcement had officers at every crossing to make sure people didn't put items on the track. Early attempts were made to "keep us x number of feet away" but as more people showed up, people edged up. Luckily we kept an unobstructed view.
It was pretty moving to see everyone out with flags and signs of support. The Union Pacific replaced a door on the car carrying the president with glass in order for everyone to see him, which was a nice surprise. It was surely a train passing that I won't soon forget.
We had hopes to chase the train after it passed but the crowds were too thick and the train was moving at a good clip. Jason Rose and Blake Bogs both also got spots at other road crossings close to our area. We headed to Jason's house just north of Spring to drop off the video footage we all shot for Jason to put together the video seen below.
