Lincoln Funeral Train

[STS Lincolnite]

From what I have understood, from the very start, they had planned on following the route, but not necessarily making all (or any) the stops besides DC, Chicago and Springfield.

I think there are a several reasons.

First is time. In order to start in DC on the right day and arrive in Springfield on the appointed day there is no way they could do all (or hardly any) of the stops and make it. They can't use the rails in all spots (and in some cases the rails don't even exist anymore - and the ones that do have commercial traffic that is darn near impossible to delay for the passage of the funeral train - in 1865 the railroads cleared all rail traffic for the train and it ran night and day around the stops). Because of the rail issues they have to load and unload the locomotive and cars from a specially designed truck and drive part (probably most) of the route. It is a painstaking and time consuming process to load and unload. Additionally, they will have to deal with road traffic, construction and I'm sure any number of other things road travelers have to deal with. Like sleep for the truck drivers (of course they may have a rotating driving crew so they can go through the night if needed).

Second, the cities would have to agree to have some sort of an organized event and many of them simply have not done that at this point. From what I understand, after the recreation of the train route they are working with the individual cities to bring the train back to each of them for an organized event if that is something they want to sponsor (I think that might have been mentioned in the article I posted before but I can't remember).

Third. Money, like Rick said. I do think they will get the car done but not sure what happens from there. They may just end up driving from DC to Springfield.

I know they really wanted to run the train from Chicago to Springfield on the rails but were having trouble getting support in Chicago as well as figuring out how to clear all other rail traffic for the journey. Not sure where they are on that now.

With an 1860s train, use of rails and roads and then sticking to a hard timeline, the logistics necessary to get something like this to work must be a nightmare.