ABOARD THE OBAMA EXPRESS – Ashar Kennedy could hardly put his thoughts into words as he scooped ice for a passenger as the train rumbled out of Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.
The Amtrak employee was running what could have been the most celebrated café car in the history of railroad travel.
Just four cars back, beyond the VIPs and the heavily armed government agents, sat the most important passenger that Kennedy has ever served. “This is a dream come true,” Kennedy told one of the passengers. Asked how he got one of Amtrak’s most coveted assignments, he smiled.
“I was chosen,” he said. “That’s all I can say about it.”
The chosen one. Like Barack Obama. A 137-mile train ride through history, and Kennedy was serving up the drinks.
Beyond him, cities and towns passed by. From parking garages and storefronts to barren back yards and trails, flag-waving spectators braved the bitter winds to greet their new president.
They were characters out of Obama’s book of unity, Americans from both sides of the track. Black, white, young, old, rich poor and cold. Firefighters in Delaware standing atop their engine. Boys and girls in Philly in a field beneath their homes.
Although the ride was just a fraction of Abraham Lincoln’s trip, the journey for the nation’s first African-American president was over a much longer road.
“I had to be here,” said Monica Lewis-Jones, among the thousands who met the train in Delaware.
“I’m here not only for our ancestors who are no longer here to be a part of this, but I’m also here for the children.”
And it didn’t matter that it was only 18 degrees outside.
“It’s just something in the air that keeps me warm,” said Reginald Martin, 60, of New Castle, Del..
Obama helped his wife, Michelle, celebrate her 45th birthday in the luxury of a plush Pullman style-carriage with cherrywood fittings built in 1939. The next first lady danced with her daughters in a car filled with balloons and merriment.
Although his car had a kitchen, two living rooms and a small bedroom, Obama lounged in the café car for a little while to schmooze with his invited guests.
“You’re never too old to toot the horn,” the president-elect told his new friends. “You pull it and ‘choo-choo.’ ”
Just outside Baltimore, the 10-car train slowed to a crawl, and people in the thick crowd pointed cameras and shouted Obama’s name. History came by on wheels, and they were there to see it.