GRIEF RIDES A SLOW, SLOW TRAIN. [2] This was not the first time. The funeral train was a tradition that began in 1865, after the assassination of President Lincoln, before the public had cameras or videos, planes or interstate highways, at a time when seeing an event live was the only opportunity they had. [3] But for Bobby’s people, this was not a time for media coverage. This was not a time to wait for newspaper stories and photos or watching a recap on the evening news. Such a catastrophic event calls for an equally epic response. One that creates a memory. A collective memory. [4] John Kenneth Galbraith movingly declared that it was the perfect choice for Bobby as “His people live along the railway tracks.” [5] The rail line was readily accessible to all his working-class supporters. Those who spontaneously turned out to watch the funeral train pass slowly through every station along the way were gathered together in clusters. A unity of whites and blacks standing together in clusters throughout the long hot day. [6]
“On June 8, 1968, the 21 car funeral train of Robert F. Kennedy left New York City for Washington, DC. The train was led by GG1 number 4901 with number 4903 trailing, and ended with Penn Central open-platform business car number 120 carrying the body of the late Senator. A three car pilot train pulled by GG1 number 4932 ran ahead of the funeral train and GG1s numbers 4900 and 4910 followed light as back-up motive power.”
The Pennsylvania Railroad GG1: Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, SteamLocomotive.com [7]
The people along the tracks could see Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy standing on the observation platform on the back of the last car. The car that carried Bobby’s coffin. Sitting on top of red velvet chairs with large windows on both sides so Bobby’s people had a clear view of the coffin, while honor guards stood around it [3] The crowds of people who lined the track from New York to Washington D.C. “[W]ere poor and not so poor, labourers, office workers, matrons and teenagers. Negroes and White, some Spanish-speaking.” [9] All day they were filling “backyards, weedy banks and vacant lots”. They were cramming station platforms, waving from factory roofs and halting on fairways “with their golf caps held over their hearts”. Some were holding flags, some saluting. Some holding up their hands with the V-sign for victory. Some standing in boats in the Newark River, the Susquehanna River and the Bush River. Others brought folding chairs, sitting in their Bermuda shorts in the humid heat. At station after station, some sang “His Truth is Marching On.” Many were weeping. [9, 10] Thousands at every station stood waving, reaching out or holding their children up to see the flag-draped coffin. And paying homage. [2]
“It was a microcosm of America on a summer Saturday afternoon: working people, businessmen, housewives, Boy Scouts, American Legionnaires. Little Leaguers stopped their games to rush to the tracks, some saluting while others placed their baseball caps over their hearts. Signs floated above the crowd: “God help you,” “RFK, RIP,” “Bless RFK.” The most common one read, “Bye Bobby.”
Steven M. Gillon, A Million Plus Mourners, History.com [12]
NEW YORK CITY TRAIN STATION – 1:04 p.m.
Seven hundred passengers, including Kennedy clansmen, cabinet members, politicians, ambassadors, dignitaries, campaign staff, volunteers, negroes, religious leaders, poor people, Hollywood stars [9] and a photographer named Paul Fusco [6] departed New York City in the funeral train carrying the body of the only white politician in the nation who walked the streets of both white and black working-class neighborhoods and was embraced by both. He was the only national leader who commanded respect and enthusiasm during the 1968 presidential campaign. And most particularly after Martin Luther King’s assassination. The depth of the desperation of Bobby’s people showed in all the countless mourners lined everywhere along the tracks. [3]
“Inside the train, you couldn’t hear anything, [b]ut on the platform, you could hear the cheers, and the people crying.” Standing between cars, Carter Burden recalled, allowed him to get close enough to the people to hear what they were saying: “It became [an] incredibly intense and moving and stirring experience.”
Steven M. Gillon, Inside Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train, History.com, June 7, 2021 [3]
ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY – @1:30 p.m.
“As they emerged from the tunnel under the Hudson River into the bright sunshine of northern New Jersey, the passengers got their first glimpse of the enormous crowds gathered to view the train…. Not anticipating this outpouring of emotion, the organizers and Penn Central had failed to make special security arrangements, resulting in yet another tragedy.”
Steven M. Gillon, A Tragic Accident, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train, History.com, June 7, 2021 [14]
Antoinette Severini and John Curia were standing on the tracks waiting for a view of the southbound funeral train. A northbound train, “The Admiral”, sounded its horn. By the time they saw it coming from the opposite direction, it was too late. They tossed their three-year-old grandchild to strangers in the crowd before getting crushed under the train’s wheels. The funeral train halted until Penn Central could cancel all northbound trains. In precaution, they sent a “three car pilot train pulled by GG1 number 4932 [to run] ahead of the funeral train and GG1s numbers 4900 and 4910 followed light as back-up motive power.” [7]
As in many large towns, members of the Elizabeth Firing Squad stood at attention in front of the residents saluting as the funeral train slowly passed the people who filled both sides of the tracks.
TRAIN DELAY AFTER TRAIN DELAY. Even after the tracks were cleared, the funeral train proceeded at a crawl. It had to move slowly through all the towns and hamlets along the way. There were so many people lining the route. Lining the tracks. The train had to keep stopping. The brake shoes wore out and had to be replaced by the guard. [9]
NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY – @3:30 p.m.
A lone bugler stood on the station platform sounding the taps. [3] Families and children dressed in Cub Scout uniforms stood saluting and holding American flags while women wept and groaned. [3]
“The train station was packed — it was just wall-to-wall people,…. “I think the most stunning thing, looking back at it, was that it was all kinds of people, all ages, all colors … And they were absolutely silent. There was no shoving, no pushing, everybody was wonderful.”
Barbara Krauss, Mourners Who Waited for Bobby Kennedy’s Funeral Train Share Their Stories, New York Post, May 31, 2018 [16]
PRINCETON JUNCTION, NEW JERSEY – @4:15 p.m.
As the funeral train rolled through Princeton Junction, people held portraits of Bobby. One man held a poster which read “Seek a Newer World“, the title of a book containing materials taken from essays of Robert F. Kennedy which grew out of his speeches, travel and experience as Attorney General and United States Senator, and posing simple questions for America and “consequently for the free world”. A first edition was published less than seven months before his assassination.
“The sense was that you were at a wake. You were paying your respects, and just here to do that and stay quietly waiting for the train to come by,” Malone said. “In one of the houses here I could hear a woman crying, and as the train came by she just called out, ‘Oh Bobby, oh Bobby.'”
John Malone, Americans Remember Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train 50 Years Later, CBSNews.com, June 6, 2018 [17]
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – @5:00 p.m.
As the train approached Philadelphia, a junior high school band was playing “America the Beautiful”. At the North Philadelphia train station, trembling nuns, clasping hands or rosaries joined the throngs of people, standing arm-to-arm, singing “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – one of Bobby’s favorite hymns. [3]
“From the way the people poured out of the ghettos in Newark and Trenton and Philadelphia and Chester and Wilmington and Baltimore and Washington, to wave and sing and cry as the train that carried his body passed, it was obvious that they believed he was [the only one they had].”
Joe McGinnis, Private Grief for a Public Man, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 1968 [18]
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE – @5:30 p.m.
A TEARFUL LAST LOOK. The Wilmington crowd comprised of every age group, color and religion. Most of Bobby’s people crowded onto the northbound side of the platform. State and city officials lined the southbound side, along with the honor guard and Delaware’s 287th Army National Guard band, with drums draped and muffled, playing “Eternal Father” (also called the “Navy Hymn”), associated with his late brother, President Kennedy’s funeral. As the train passed slowly through the Wilmington Train Station, the crowd was silent and still except for weeping, dabbing of eyes with handkerchiefs, and waving small American flags. [19]
“The people of Wilmington gave Sen. RFK a solemn and touching farewell as thousands watched the funeral train glide slowly through the city Saturday. A quiet crowd estimated at more than 5000 by one police official stood on the northbound platform at Penn Central station and for many blocks along either side to get a look at the train as it passed through about 5:30 p.m. As the sad eyes from the crowd looked into the doors and windows of the 21-car train, the equally somber eyes of the Kennedy family and their friends gazed back at the Wilmington-ians. SEN. Edward M. Kennedy, brother of the slain NY senator, stood on the rear platform of the train, a few feet from where the flag-draped casket of his brother rested, and waved in solemn appreciation to the crowd. Many other recognizable public figures waved from the doors and the windows of the train. One was Pierre Salinger, the late President JFK’s press secretary and close family friend. Mrs. Ethel Kennedy could be seen seated in a parlor car, looking through the window at the people outside.”
Charles P. Wilson, Sad Eyes Meet by Tracks Leading to the Last Stop, The Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, June 10, 1968 [19]
NEWPORT, DELAWARE – @5:45 p.m.
Super 8 film transferred to HD video, 0:51 min.; courtesy Debbie Beal
NEWARK, DELAWARE – @6:00 p.m.
Local residents flooded to the tracks, gathering in open fields with small white wildflowers near the old Newark Train Station. Families stood in groups. No one mingled. No one talked. For hours they waited contemplating the devastation and loss of Bobby. The loss of their dreams. The deep loss of yet another Kennedy who was poised to make the nation a better place. As the train passed by, quiet weeping and wailing were heard, surrounded by streams of silent tears, saluting, clasping of hands or holding of hearts. For Bobby. For the nation. For themselves. [22]
ELKTON & NORTHEAST MARYLAND – @ 6:15 p.m.
Young Larry Beers with his little Brownie Kodak (8mm) went down to the Elkton train station. Admittedly, Larry didn’t understand what was happening at first. He just went there to record things like he always did. Larry made his recording from the Elkton Train Station. [24]
“In the last car I’m standing there and I see a lady with a veil. And she is sitting next to a casket that has a flag over it and it was like ‘I wasn’t ready for that.’ I just expected to see the train and here I am looking at a lady with a veil, sitting next to a coffin that’s carrying the hope of my family, black Americans… The train was carrying the remains of our last hope. And I think that was felt for everyone that was there.”
Michael Scott, Americans Remember Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train 50 Years Later, CBSNews, June 6, 2018 [25]
CHARLESTOWN, ABERDEEN & BENGIES, MARYLAND – @6:30 p.m.
Mile after mile. Passing station after station. Thousands of people. Nuns with large cross necklaces. School children in uniforms, in bathing suits. Toddlers, still and silent in their parents’ arms. Some were holding them up as if telling them, ‘You look at Robert Kennedy, and that’s the way you should lead your life.’ [26] Women in shorts, in house dresses, Sunday dresses. Men in undershirts, sports shirts, uniforms and suits. People standing on tracks and bridges, many people deep. Some were kneeling. Some were sitting on box cars and police cars. Firetrucks. Chins were held high. Hands and flags held high. Signs held ever higher, expressing eulogy, well wishes and broken hearts. Cameras and Kodaks faced the train clicking away while memorializing “The People’s View“. [24]
“My mother loved the Kennedy’s and I went with her and my brother to the Aberdeen Train Station to see Bobby’s Funeral Train. We stood right by the railroad tracks. The last car looked like it was a booth and the casket had a flag on it. I saw a lady waving to us. It was a sad occasion. These were scary times with racial conflicts. We had bomb threats within the family from the KKK who were in the area. I remember I had a lot of trouble sleeping at night that year.”
Jacqueline Brown of Elkton, Maryland [28]
“Thirteen miles northeast of Baltimore’s Union Station and midway between Middle River and the Gunpowder River, the abandoned railroad crossing provided an ideal spot from which observers could watch the train in as much privacy as could be found along the 226-mile stretch of track that knifes through the densely populated northeast corridor.”
Julius M. Westheimer, A Train Passes through Bengies, The Evening Sun, Baltimore, Maryland June 19, 1968 [30]
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – @7:00 p.m.
”Just as the seven o’clock ‘news on the hour’ announced that the funeral train was nearing the Baltimore suburbs, an Army helicopter wheeled in from the north, circled overhead, proceeded back over the tracks—and then majestically flew in over the approaching Kennedy train in a personal escort into the Baltimore area. Wheels clicking, bells ringing, passengers waving—the funeral train slipped solemnly past the silent crowd.”
Julius M. Westheimer, A Train Passes through Bengies, The Evening Sun, Baltimore, Maryland June 19, 1968 [30]
Nobody seemed to have expected such a turnout along the tracks. All the millions of mourners. It was as if the his opponents thought the campaign crowds would stay home. That they would be too sad. The mood was sad. And quiet. So much so that it made an impression. One that would last. Some burst into sobbing tears at the sight of the casket and at the Kennedy widows who at several points came onto the observation platform of the last car. Some wailed at the Senator, his brother, the last of the male Kennedy’s. This man had had a million enemies. “Half the country had been ganging up to knock him down.” But the poor and the young, all the downtrodden, oh how they loved him. And they were “the hardest ones to fool”. Fools may have stayed home. But Bobby’s people, they did not. There they would stand, as close as they could, for his last ride. [9]
“The Rev. Dr. M. McWilliams said the two slain Kennedys and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were like physicians writing prescriptions for the world’s ills.”
Charles P. Wilson, Sad Eyes Meet by Tracks Leading to the Last Stop, The Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, June 10, 1968 [19]
ODENTON & BOWIE, MARYLAND – @7:45 p.m.
The people of Odenton covered the station, standing along the tracks, as near to the train as they could. When that filled, they climbed on the roof. Everyone wanted a clear view of the twenty-one car train carrying the slain Senator.
“People stood under the hot sun for hours waiting to get a glimpse of the train. The conductor reported hearing a crunching sound. ‘People were throwing pennies on the railroad tracks so when the train passed over them …that they could keep the flattened pennies as a momento of the day’.”
Linde Lehtinen, RFK’s Last Journey: An SFMOMA exhibit [31]
People gathered near the train station in Old Town Bowie. A cross-section of American society where black, white, city-dwellers and country folk all stared at the slowly passing train. In mutual bewilderment, town after town, state after state, photographer Paul Fusco stared out of the funeral train into the faces and camera lens of all sizes and shapes that were mirroring his. This was the real testimony of Bobby’s permanent connection with the people from all walks of life. In every station along the way and through open miles of tracks, the people stood in testament to that connection. [24]
“I think perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the funeral train was that an awful lot of people felt there was nowhere to go.”
What the Hell was the Nation Going to do Now, History.com, June 7, 2021 [32]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – @8:30 p.m.
PRIVATE GRIEF FOR A PUBLIC MAN. [18] Police lines had been set up on both sides where the crowds were waiting in Washington D.C. There were as many at the end of the ride as there was at the beginning. Bobby may not have felt like he had a home in some places in our nation, but in New York City and Washington D.C., and in all the other towns along the northeast, he was a hero. [18] “So the train ride that was supposed to take four hours took eight. And in a way that was not so bad. It was his last ride and it was kind of nice that it was not over and done with quickly.” [18] The millions of faces who lined the 226 miles of track is something that would not allow those who rode the funeral train to every forget. They would always remember who Bobby really cared about. Just as those who lined the tracks would never forget who Bobby really cared about. Nor would they forget how much they cared for Bobby. [9]
“This is the way Bobby would have liked it. For he was a collector of people – beautiful people, successful people, influential people.”
Peter Younghusband. “Grief Rides a Slow, Slow Train.” Daily Mail, 10 June 1968 [2]
“Godspeed Bobby. It may seem disrespectful to use so informal a phrase as “Godspeed” for a fallen leader such as Robert F. Kennedy, but that simple expression, written out in large letters on a sign and held by three people standing along the train tracks were, and still are, moving. The photo taken of the mourning strangers from the vantage point of the passing funeral train has become iconic…”
Erika Quesenbery Sturgill, Godspeed Bobby: RFK Funeral Train Passed 50 Years Ago Today, The Cecil Whig, June 9, 2018 [33]
HIS FINAL JOURNEY HELPED A NATION GRIEVE. [3] Bobby’s funeral train memorialized an epic image in the heart and soul of the nation. One that still runs strong today. Night had fallen before they were able to put him to rest. Five hours behind schedule. [9] In the modern era, there had been no funeral like this in our nation. No procession. No duration. No intensity. Never had there been millions lined up for hundreds of miles. The service had started at ten o’clock in the morning in New York City and the burial did not finish until eleven o’clock at night in Arlington National Cemetery. The train had slowed at every station along the tracks so the people of the nation could pay their homage. Show their love. And share their grief. [12]
[1] Alan Taylor, A Portrait of America: Watching Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train Pass By, The Atlantic: Paul Fusco / Library of Congress, LOOK Magazine Collection, 2018.
[2] Peter Younghusband, Grief Rides a Slow, Slow Train, Daily Mail, June 10, 1968, 2.
[3] Steven M. Gillon, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve, History.com, 2021.
[4] Rein Jelle Terpstra, Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train – The People’s View, 2018.
[5] John Kenneth Galbraith, by Steven M. Gillon, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve, History.com, 2021.
[6] Louis Menand et al., Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, Fifty Years Later, The New Yorker, 2018.
[7] Richard Duley, The Pennsylvania Railroad GG1: Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, (n.d.).
[8] RFK Funeral Train Photo Exhibit: Kennedy’s Final Journey. Voice of America News, 2018.
[9] Stephen Barber, Arc Lights for Kennedy Burial. The Sunday Telegraph, June 9, 1968, 32.
[10] Frederick Friese, Fortitude, The Baltimore Sun, June 9, 1968, 14.
[11] Olivia Waxman, Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train: Story Behind Rare photos, Time, 2018.
[12] Steven M. Gillon, A Million-Plus Mourners, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve, History.com, 2021.
[13] British Pathé, Robert Kennedy Funeral, YouTube, 2014.
[14] Steven M. Gillon, A Tragic Accident, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve, History.com, 2021.
[15] Dispatch Press Images, Train Passing Elizabeth Station (n.d.).
[16] Raquel Laneri, Mourners Who Waited for Bobby Kennedy’s Funeral Train Share Their Stories, New York Post, 2018.
[17] John Malone, Americans Remember Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, 50 Years Later, CBS News, 2018.
[18] Joe McGinniss, Private Grief For a Public Man, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 1968, 1, 35.
[19] Charles P. Wilson, Sad Eyes Meet by Tracks Leading to the Last Stop, The Morning News, June 10, 1968, 1.
[20] Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Video. British Pathé. YouTube.
[21] Debbie Beal, Video by Barney Skibinski: Newport, Delaware, SFMOMA, 2018.
[22] Personal family interview – anonymous.
[23] Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, Window on Cecil County’s Past, 2009.
[24] Magnum Foundation et al., Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train: The People’s View, (2018).
[25] Michael Scott, Americans Remember Robert F. Kennedy’s Funeral Train, 50 Years Later, CBS News, 2018.
[26] Paul Fusco, Robert Kennedy Funeral Train. Abagond, 2016.
[27] Robert Kennedy Funeral Train Rolls Through Maryland, June 8, 1968. BaltimoreSun.com, 2021.
[28] Jacqueline Brown, Elkton, Maryland, Personal Interview, August 12, 2021.
[29] Robert Kennedy Funeral Premium High-Res Photos, Getty Images, Keystone, Photos et al. (n.d.)
[30] Julius Westheimer, A Train Passes Through Bengies, The Evening Sun, June 19, 1968, 32.
[31] RFK’s Last Journey: An SFMOMA Exhibit, KTVU FOX 2, 2018.
[32] What the Hell was the Nation Going to do Now, by Steven M. Gillon, Inside RFK’s Funeral Train: How His Final Journey Helped a Nation Grieve, History.com, 2021.
[33] Erika Sturgill, Godspeed Bobby: RFK Funeral Train Passed 50 Years Ago Today, The Cecil Whig, 2018.
[34] Bobby Kennedy’s Funeral Train (By the awful grace of God), YouTube, 2020.
6.8.68 Funeral Train 