Welcome aboard the Abraham Lincoln. The Nation's oldest operating private railroad car.

As the sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) opened the West by signing the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862, authorizing the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads to build what was to become the nation's first transcontinental railroad and telegraph line. Thirty-five years later, Abraham Lincoln's Son, Robert, became President of the Pullman Company, during a time which is known as the beginning of a new era in rail car construction. As the successor to George Pullman, from 1897 to 1911, Robert Todd Lincoln led the giant passenger car manufacturer in the technological revolution from sixty-foot, wood-trussed varnished cars to eighty-foot, riveted steel; from gas lighting to 32 volt DC electricity, and from fabricated wood and iron trucks to massive steel castings. The most noticeable change was from the ornate Victorian interior to the era of simple elegance using clear wood and Mission style molding lightly accented with bronze hardware. One may imagine that Robert Todd's movement toward simple elegance may have been the result of his father's distaste of the ornate styling of President Lincoln's own private railroad car, which was not used by the President during his life but only as his funeral train to transport his body to Springfield, Illinois.

This Pullman car was delivered as car number 895 configured as as 84 passenger coach in September of 1910 to the Western Pacific Railroad and was the culmination of these improvements and is typical of the ultimate in travel prior to World War I. After the decrease in movement to the "Wild West", the coach was retired and rebuilt in 1929 in the Burhnam shops by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and then became the D&RGW 101 the railroad into a self-contained private Pullman business car which was the "corporate jet" of the era. It expresses wealth, yet conservativeness; practicality, yet opulence.

The Abraham Lincoln has been preserved for nearly a century looking much the same as most private railroad cars of the early 1900s. Its antiquated elegance is rare and is listed on the Washington State Historical and National Historic Registry, yet its mechanical condition is state of the art and ready for the next century. Up until fairly recent changes in Amtrak regulations, The Abraham Lincoln was the oldest private car in the United States which could be pulled by Amtrak. While the car carries its current inspection and can travel behind shortlines and freight, our primary goal now is to add the required Head End Power (HEP) so we can once again ride the rails behind Amtrak.