People get ready, there's a train a'comin'

picking' up passengers....

What can one say that isn't trite or dumb? The photo says it all. Change is en route, though it will come slowly and with effort but si se puede.

The NYT reports on the train car itself:

Slow Train Coming
By Michael Falcone

The shiny blue vintage rail car that carried Barack Obama on a whistle-stop tour through Pennsylvania during the presidential campaign will take him on a pre-inaugural ride from Philadelphia to Washington on Saturday, the symbolic last leg of his road to the White House.

The train trip, an abbreviated version of Abraham Lincoln’s 12-day journey to the nation’s capitol before his own inauguration in 1861, is another nod to history, kicking off a week when the parallels between the 16th and 44th presidents will be plentiful.

President-elect Obama and his family will be riding in a private rail car called the Georgia 300 that has carved out a place in presidential history. Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have also been passengers as well as Senator John Kerry during his 2004 White House bid.

Owned and maintained by John Heard of Fernandina Beach Fla., the car was built in 1930 and includes several compartments, a dining room and an observation platform.– a presidential must for rail travel. It features an early-century style interior with polished wood and brass fixtures throughout, but the technology on the train will be decidedly 21st century.

A Cambridge, Mass.-based company, Waav, was busy outfitting the rail car with stacks of wireless broadband routers to keep members of Mr. Obama’s traveling party, and the throng of press who will accompany him, connected throughout the estimated nine-hour long trip.

Mr. Obama and his family will board the rail car Saturday morning at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, stopping for events in Wilmington, Del. and Baltimore, Md. In Wilmington, the Obamas will pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his family. The train station there is a familiar one for Mr. Biden, who commuted almost daily on Amtrak for decades. He’ll be greeted by Gregg Weaver, the conductor of the train the former senator usually rode.

The inaugural train will also make several “slow rolls” through communities along the way, giving the onlookers who are expected to line the 135-mile route, a chance to wave at the incoming president (and maybe get a wave back).
[...]

Mr. Obama’s private car will be pulled along its route by Amtrak locomotives. And the inaugural train procession will get first priority on the tracks. The railroad issued an advisory warning the passengers on regularly scheduled trains to expect to wait “due to the extraordinary security measures in place and the special operations required” by the inaugural train procession.

The final whistle-stop of the day will be at Washington’s Union Station where the president-elect and company are expected to arrive at about 7 p.m.

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Meanwhile, pray for El Salvador as it has its mayoral elections tomorrow. May they, too, finally see a season of change after so many years of the same old, same old (i.e., may the Frente gain more seats at the expense of Arena). Their presidential election will be in March and I'll remind you of it then (!).

Meanwhile, we have only two more days!!!!!