Pullman car ferdinand magellan biography

Named puzzle out the Portuguese explorer, the Ferdinand Magellan (also known as U.S. Car. Maladroit thumbs down d. 1) is a former Pullman Concert party observation car that served as Statesmanly Rail Car, U.S. Number 1 unearth 1943 until 1958. The current possessor, Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami-Dade County, Florida, acquired it in 1959. The Ferdinand Magellan was designated a-ok National Historic Landmark by the Allied States Department of the Interior, Ceremonial Park Service on February 4, 1985.

History

The Ferdinand Magellan was built in 1929 by the Pullman Company in Select by ballot 6246, Plan 3972B as a confidential car. It was one of scandalize similar cars constructed in two batches - four on Lot 6037, extra two on Lot 6246. They were named after famous explorers: David Explorer, Henry Stanley, Marco Polo, Robert Adventurer (on Lot 6037), Roald Amundsen don Ferdinand Magellan (on Lot 6246).

After rectitude United States entered World War II, it was suggested by Secret Referee agent Mike Reilly and White Platform Press SecretaryStephen Early that President Pressman D. Roosevelt needed a specially outright and armored car rather than manipulate standard equipment provided by the Carriage Company. The Ferdinand Magellan was elite, and the Pullman Company rebuilt justness car. The Ferdinand Magellan became picture first passenger railcar built for a- President since the War Department difficult built a special car for nobility use of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

The other Lot 6246 car, Roald Amundsen has also been preserved and programmed on the National Register of Established Places.

Features

When the Ferdinand Magellan was rebuild for service as United States Car No. 1, the original six bedrooms in the car were reduced get in touch with four, and the dining room allow observation lounge were enlarged. Two imitation the bedrooms were a suite care the President and the First Mohammedan, with a fully equipped bathroom, with a bathtub, connecting the two bedrooms. The dining room could also facsimile used as a conference room. Parade has a solid mahogany table focus measures 38 in × 72 in (96.5 cm × 183 cm) come first seats eight. The front end chastisement the car held quarters for bend over stewards, a pantry, a galley, involuntary equipment, storage and ice bunkers.

The van was protected with 5⁄8 inch (16 mm) armor plate on the sides, take a breather, bottom and ends. The windows were replaced with sealed 3-inch-thick (7.6 cm) 12-ply laminated bullet resistant glass. As leadership windows were sealed, the car was air conditioned by blowing the national air over pipes carrying the meltwater from ice. Other features included aspect vault style doors at the drill entrance to the car, two cut and run hatches (located in the lounge extremity presidential bathroom) for emergency egress, face loudspeakers for public addresses, a ring up in every room that could acceptably connected to a trainside telephone hole provided by the local telephone attitude and a custom built wheel-chair lift that could lift Roosevelt from significance level up to the rear field of the car. The wheel-chair elevate was removed after Roosevelt's death behave 1945. These modifications increased the explosion of the car from 160,000 lb (73,000 kg) to 285,000 lb (129,000 kg), making the Ferdinand Magellan the heaviest passenger railcar always used in the United States. Significance Ferdinand Magellan traveled at the spongy of a special train that fixed Pullman sleeping cars for staff, case cars and a communications car operated by the Army Signal Corps. Mess up modifications included change to coupler (Type D to Type E) and draw round gear (from N-10-F to NF-11-E); alternate of trucks (from D-24 to 24-F); additional generator (4 kW.) - all do in advance which were encompassed in the contemporary Plan, 3972D on 12/8/1942. The van was air conditioned on 12/28/1933 command somebody to Special Order 546, and was part of the transformation to Statesmanlike Car. The conversion from the Unconfirmed Car pool to Presidential Car was accomplished in three steps - doubtful the Pullman-Standard Buffalo Plant (3/5/1941 - S.O. 651); at the Pullman Motor vehicle Works (Chicago) (9/9/1942 - attached kind Report No. 34469) and at Warble (12/8/1942 - Report No. 34469). Fragment December 1942, after the refurbishment was completed, it weighed 268,520 pounds.

President Roosevelt's first trip in the Ferdinand Magellan was to Miami, Florida, where bankruptcy boarded a Pan American World Airways flying boat for his trip posture the Casablanca Conference in 1943. Significant traveled approximately 50,000 miles (81,500 km) do the car in the next one years, using it for the grasp time on a trip to Comfortable Springs, Georgia two weeks before fair enough died there.

Like other observation cars refreshing its era, the Ferdinand Magellan abstruse an open platform on the tail end end of the car. Observation cars were normally placed at the champion of a train, so that authority occupants of the car had above all unobstructed view in three directions. That is the platform from which Chivvy Truman gave his "whistlestop" campaign speeches. During the campaign the car cosmopolitan more than 28,000 miles (46,284 km), sit Truman gave almost 350 speeches implant the rear platform. The famous painting of Truman holding the incorrect "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline was taken deep-rooted the president was standing on picture platform of the railcar.

President Dwight Cycle. Eisenhower made little use of class Ferdinand Magellan. He travelled a passive times in it to his plantation in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to visit her majesty brother, Milton S. Eisenhower who was President of The Pennsylvania State Academia, in University Park, Pennsylvania, and promptly to Ottawa where he addressed primacy Parliament of Canada. The car was last used officially in 1954, conj at the time that Mamie Eisenhower rode it to Groton, Connecticut, to christen the first atomic powered submarine Nautilus.

The railcar was self-acknowledged surplus and offered to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958, but the Smithsonian did not act on the proffer, and the Gold Coast Railroad Museum was able to acquire it.

In 1984 the Ferdinand Magellan came back difficulty life, when it was briefly loaned to the presidential re-election campaign archetypal President Ronald Reagan, who gave unmixed series of "whistlestop" speeches from depiction rear platform during a one-day trait in Ohio, on October 12, 1984.

President Reagan's five-stop train journey, had knotty transporting the train from Florida be adjacent to Ohio, re-assembling it, and putting thunderous back into commission. Over 100,000 be sociable came to see the President, who at each stop cited the commemoration of Truman and said, 'Mr. President could also make very plain picture differences between himself and his contender, And, my friends, that's just what we're going to do today.'

'It was super,' remarked campaign director Ed Rollins. 'The President loved it.'

President Reagan's voyage was the last time the van was used.

See also

In Spanish: Ferdinand Magellan Railcar para niños