When Politics Rode the Rails

By Hugh Sidey

The great American political-campaign trains were like the dinosaurs. Just when they reached legendary size and importance, they were on their way to extinction, courtesy of the airplane.

The greatest of all the trains ran for Harry Truman in 1948, when he clicked off 31,700 miles and delivered 356 speeches (16 in one day). Truman astonished his own political experts and the world that year by beating Republican Thomas Dewey, who was so confident of victory that he was choosing his Cabinet before any vote was cast.

"Oh, it was just great," remembers Bob Donovan, who, as a young reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, was with Truman the whole way. "We saw this country like never before; the wheat fields, the mountains and the little towns. Thousands and thousands of people came out and gathered around the train. It was Harry Truman's country and his kind of people. He loved it all."

Truman traveled in the ponderous and luxurious private car named Ferdinand Magellan, originally made for President Franklin Roosevelt. It was paneled in oak with four staterooms, bath and shower, and 6,000 lbs. of ice for air conditioning. The car was sheathed in steel-armor plating and 3-in. bulletproof glass. When they were out in the open, Truman liked the train to hit 80 m.p.h., and he would watch "our country" slide by while telling stories and sipping a little good bourbon--ready at each stop to "give 'em hell" and introduce "the boss," Bess Truman. The most famous campaign picture of all time is of a grinning Truman standing on the platform of the Magellan in St. Louis, Mo., holding up an early edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

In truth, trains were used for political moments from their start. But in the early days, presidential candidates did not storm the country seeking votes. William Henry Harrison actually campaigned on a train in 1836. Not until the turn of the century did modern rail campaigning begin, with William McKinley and candidate William Jennings Bryan. Theodore Roosevelt devised the full campaign train, a rolling complex with living and office cars.

The golden age of presidential train travel was introduced by Franklin Roosevelt, says author Bob Withers (The President Travels by Train: Politics and Pullmans; TLC Publishing). During his 12 White House years, Roosevelt set the all-time record of 243,827 miles by rail, most of them at a leisurely pace, wandering through America, luxuriating in the vast beauty, campaigning, inspecting Depression-era projects and, later, defense plants. Then came Truman with a political purpose and his Missouri determination.

The airplane was what did in the campaign train, but television played a role--and so did the shifting U.S. population. "Trains used to come to the front door of America," says Bill Withuhn, an authority on trains at the Smithsonian. "Now they go to the backyards." Depots are shuttered; junkyards and weed patches and winos too often greet the rail traveler.

Every candidate since Truman has had a train ride or two, but most of those have been nostalgic photo ops designed to relieve the monotony of modern airports, programmed motorcades and polished television studios. Lady Bird Johnson led a first ever First Lady's whistle-stop through the South for four days in 1964. There have been no follow-ups.

The stories of train campaigning will grow with each retelling. A few political veterans recall Tom Dewey's blurting into an open mike when his train lurched backward that he must have "a lunatic engineer." The New York Times's Scotty Reston ended his account of that particular incident with this line: "And then the train took off with a jerk."

Theodore Roosevelt once lifted a lagging but sprinting reporter aboard a departing train amid much laughter and cheering. Woodrow Wilson came back to his car to spy a couple of hobos hanging under it. Wilson invited them to ride inside with him. Over-awed, the tramps declined, suggesting that the President had more important concerns.

George Elsey, who was a young aide on Truman's great campaign trains, remembers the hard work, the sleepless nights preparing speeches and organizing the regular presidential business that continued in spite of the campaigning. Once, when he took papers to Truman, who was dining with Bess, she looked up at Elsey and said, worried, "You look peaked. Have you had anything to eat?" No, admitted Elsey, who had been just too busy for food. "Here," she said, pushing her piece of apple pie to him, "you can eat this, and I shouldn't." The Ferdinand Magellan with Harry Truman rolled on into history that night, fueled by apple pie.