April 19, 1865 funeral procession

[STS Lincolnite]

Thanks Roger and Kees. Well, since I grew up with just one monopolist railway "company" nationwide (the German state, now a corporation with only few competitors), 42 companies seemed indeed an enormous number to me.

Also I understood that all the 42 engines just pulled the funeral train. Kees, re: "There were ca. 20 engines that pulled the funeral train and ca. 20 engines used as pilot," - what does this, i. e. "used as pilot" mean?

Eva, the pilot engine is the locomotive that is ca. 10 minutes ahead of the funeral train to control the track, if it is free of any obstacles, crowds etc.

Back later ....

I will expand a little on Kees response.

This from Scott Trostel's book The Lincoln Funeral Train mentioned by Roger in a previous post. From p. 22:
"The Pilot Engine and usually one coach operated over the tracks first, as a security buffer, followed by Funeral Train. The space between the trains was to average approximately 10 minutes."

Also in the same book (as Roger mentioned - on p. 208-209) is a great table that lists all of the locomotives (pilot and funeral train) names that are known - he has been able to identify a good number of them. In addition it lists the segment of rail they operated on as well as the names of the crew members (engineer and fireman) who ran the locomotives if known. Quite a few are known.

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Forgot to include in my last post that Scott Trostel will be speaking at the 2015 Surratt Conference.