Presidential funeral train will be first in nearly 50 years

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A locomotive unveiled in 2005 for a special exhibit at George H.W. Bush's presidential library will be used to pull the late president's funeral train.

Dubbed 4141 in honor of the 41st president, the 4,300-horsepower machine will carry Bush's remains Thursday to his final resting place.

The locomotive is traveling from suburban Houston about 70 miles (113 kilometers) to College Station, where Bush will be buried at his presidential library at Texas A&M University. A car with transparent walls will allow mourners along the tracks to see the president's flag-draped coffin.

It will be the eighth presidential funeral train and the first since Dwight D. Eisenhower's remains were carried from Washington to his native Kansas. Abraham Lincoln had the nation's first presidential funeral train in 1865.