Observation Car - History

History

When passenger trains were still the preferred mode of intercity transportation in America, observations often were used by those campaigning for public office, especially for the Presidency of the United States such as United States Railcar No. 1, the Ferdinand Magellan. On a Whistle stop train tour the candidate’s train would pull into town and stop with the observation end at the station, then the candidate would appear on the observation platform to deliver his “stump speech”. The observation platform made a perfect temporary stage for just such an event. Like political candidates, famous personalities such as members of a royal family or film stars would use the open observation car end as a stage from which they would greet well-wishers and fans during public tours.

In more recent years, presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have used a heavyweight observation car built by the Pullman Standard Company in 1930.

• One of the former British Pullman Company’s two Devon Belle parlour-observation cars on the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway, 2007-08-26.

• 1916 Republican candidate for President of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes, and his wife shake hands with supporters at Chicago's Union Station during their Whistle stop train tour.

• Victorian Goldfields Railway car Tambo, a preserved former Overland E type sleeping car converted to a Parlor/Observation Car.

• Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the balcony of State Car 4 in Victoria, Australia in 1927.

• United States Railcar No. 1 Ferdinand Magellan used by incumbent U.S. Presidents for official travel and campaign whistlestops.

• Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt on Whistle stop train tour in 1932

• President Harry S. Truman at the microphone in 1948 in Keyser, West Virginia.

• An observation car from the Henschel-Wegmann Train in Germany.

• President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford wave from a train during their Whistle stop train tour of Michigan in 1976.

• One of the Milwaukee Road’s beavertail observation cars about to leave Chicago Union Station with the Hiawatha in January 1943.

• One of Via Rail Canada's former Canadian Pacific Railway Park series dome-observation cars built by Budd in the mid 1950s.

• A dome/observation of the Burlington Route's California Zephyr on display in Maricopa, Arizona.

• The interior of a typical lightweight observation. An observation's interior could include features of a coach, lounge, diner, or sleeper.

• President Ronald Reagan goes on a Whistle stop train tour through Ohio in 1984.

• President-Elect Barack Obama en route to his inauguration - a Whistle stop train tour re-creating Abraham Lincoln's inaugural journey.