Monday Shot: Liberty Limited

Monday Shot isn't quite espresso, but hopefully this weekly transit picture will help get your week started.

Okay, so technically this picture is not of transit, but I didn't want to wait until Friday to post it. Besides, I did shoot it from a transit platform.



I went out early on Saturday to catch a glimpse of the Liberty Limited. The Liberty is a train made up of privately owned locomotives and railcars and is used to transport wounded veterans from Washington to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game.

The two locomotives in the lead are owned by a man named Bennett Levin, who also owns the platform observation car at the rear of the train. Both locomotives are E8As, and are painted in the tuscan red of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

It was quite a thrill to see this train made up of cars from the golden age of railroading. And the streamlined diesels were quite a sight to see as well, roaring up the Northeast Corridor.



I was also very excited to see for the first time in my life PRR 120, the observation car at the rear of the train. It was one of the first privately owned railcars in the United States, and helped to start that trend. Private railcar ownership has helped to preserve many of these cars, which otherwise would have ended up in museums or the scrap heap.

Car 120 carried the body of Robert F. Kennedy from New York to Washington to be buried at Arlington in 1968, when tens of thousands lined the tracks to say their final goodbyes.

This trip of #120 was a bit quieter. At the Seabrook MARC station, where I took these photos, only a few railfans looked on. But the cold morning was well worth the excitement.