June 8 this year is the 50th anniversary of the NY-DC funeral train for Robert F. Kennedy. I've been trying to track down consist information on this 21 car train. Aside from Mr. Levin's PRR business car #120, which bore the casket of the late Senator, knowing that one car was a baggage car, and the numbers of the GG1's involved, I can't find much of anything on the rest of the train other than some non-detailed still photos and grainy movie footage that only shows snippets of it.

I do know that the train was arranged for and thrown together over about a 2 day period, between Bobby being taken off of life support early on Thursday morning June 6, and the Saturday morning funeral. The consist was a dog's breakfast of various types of PRR and NYC passenger equipment, just about all coaches, including Congressional service cars, other long-distance coaches, and at least some of the smooth-sided, Budd-built Inn series cars that had originally been PRR sleepers, later commuter cars that ended up on MARC and have since been sold off to a number of other operators and owners. The preservation component of this post is that maybe, possibly, at least one of those cars may still exist in preservation by one of those entities. I know that nine are on the CVSR, two are owned by Washington, DC NRHS, and at least one by Huntington Chapter NRHS.

So, does anyone have any consist information on that train? Maybe the PennCentral Historical Society? Anyone? Bueller? This is another instance where the good old interwebs do NOT have everything you ever wanted to know.

Have you looked in TRAINS Magazine?

-Hudson

I just tried searching the Trains website for anything and came up blank.

On this page there are three home movies of the train - I think you can make out the car numbers from them:

https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/super-8-fi ... ples-view/

Otherwise, I have never seen a complete consist posted anywhere.

NHRR Forum has the consist. RFK Train had no NH cars, but pilot train had 2 NH Point-series 14-4 sleepers. [In 1968 NH was still independent of PC]

I'll give a link rather than show the consist because there is pertinent discussion.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thenhrh ... t4082.html

Trains archive should have "The most closely watched train" in the August (?) 1968 issue.

People were all over the ROW; After EB #50, The Admiral, struck people at Elizabeth NJ, with 2 killed and 4 seriously injured, PC stopped all trains except the specials, which then moved very slowly.

Rear car was PC ex-PRR 120, in Tuscan Red but lettered Penn Central. The car name "Pennsylvania" was blacked out.

Phil Mulligan

Thank you. the NH Tech discussion board gave a complete consist. I was more than right about the Inn Series cars being in that train! Looks like 12 of the coaches in the train were those cars, if they were numbered in the 1500's back then. There was also a PRR twin unit diner and ex-NYC business car #20 just ahead of PRR 120.

Now, I need to cross reference those numbers with whatever I can find on the disposition of the Inn cars. If anyone is interested I can re-post the consist info from the NH board.

OK, from searching this board I cannot find any dispositions on the following Inn series coaches that were on the train: #1581 and #1591. Of the ones that I could trace, the B&O Museum has 1 - #1503, Alliance Inn, their #143. Nos. 1501, 1531, 1535 show to NJ Transit with no further disposition. Two show going to SLRG/Iowa Pacific, Nos. 1524 and 1528. The biggest disposition of the cars would probably come as little surprise to most here, Ringling Bros. had four; Nos. 1512, 1522, 1530, and 1541.

None of the cars ended up with any of the tourist/preservation groups I had hoped they might have. Perhaps the B&O Museum might want to put some kind of signage in their car noting it's use in the train.

For information, the rest of the cars not previously noted were: B-60b bag #7607; #1484, Virginia Military Institute (no disposition info); #4484, a D-78 Diner; 1483, Franklin County (no disposition info); Twin-Unit diner #4609-4608; #7146, 7 DR/Parlor Matthias W. Baldwin.

Thanks for everyone's input.

PC/PRR 1480-1497 were converted to coaches from 20 N&W 10 Rmt 6 DB sleepers (Budd 1949-1950) (1498-99 were snack bar coaches)

The 1480 and 1500 (PRR Inn-21 Rmt) cars retained their sleeping car windows, leaving many "window" seat patrons next to a pillar.

Phil Mulligan

The car immediately ahead of PRR 120 is NYC 30, later CR 10, conveyed to CSX in the division of CR assets between NS and CSX.

Thank you for the clarification.

Here are a few discussion board threads that may be of interest:

This Trainorders.com thread has a complete consist:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1688167

And (for future readers) the thread on the Internet Archive

https://web.archive.org/web/20180517015902/https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1688167



This railroad.net thread has additional operational details:

http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22796

And

https://web.archive.org/web/20180517015447/http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22796

Just looked over the article in the August 1968 issue of Trains Magazine. The article doesn't quite match that link in the 5th post. The ex NYC business car is listed as #30 in Trains, not #20.

NYC business-car number issue addressed, correctly, in previous post by R. Carey

Sorry, didn't notice it. I must've hit reply without reading all the way through the thread to manage to miss that.

Well this topic sure woke me up. FIFTY years ago? I remember sitting and watching the train on TV that day and it sure doesn't seem like that long ago. Wow! I remember the tracks being lined with people wall to wall.
I'm getting older than dirt.