FDR’s Hidden Track 61
Ok, there are several myths surrounding track 61 in GCT and it’s platform. First the platform is older than the Waldorf. You can see track 61 and the platform on the original plans for GCT. The platform was originally for the Adams express company and was kept after Adams moved out and was replaced by the Waldorf. The platform was used very rarely by Waldorf customers to move baggage and for private railroad cars owned by Waldorf customers . FDR may have used the platform twice in trips to NYC. The baggage car that now sits on track 61 is not FDR’s train. It’s a storage car put there by Metro North sometime in the 1980’s. It’s obvious that the car was repainted by Metro North at some point because it has blue paint, which was not a New York Central color. There is a car in GCT still painted in NYC paint, but it is a troop sleeper that lives on the lower level. There was never a presidential train. Prior to FDR and for most of FDR’s tenure Presidents used cars pulled from Pullman’s rental fleet. During the War the Secret Service thought that additional security was needed and Pullman rebuilt a car from the pool for the President. The only FDR train was the specially modified Pullman car Ferdinand Magellan which is in a railroad museum in Florida. Like some other “myths” about GCT, this one has been promulgated around for years by the GCT publicist and most of us who know about GCT just laugh.
Update:
Here’s a link to Abandoned Stations with the 1913 GCT track map with track 61 and Adam’s express’s platform clearly shown.
http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/gct61.html
The Ferdinand Magellan.
You should make these myths more widely known. I retrieved this information from an official WWII information site.
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FDR didn’t need special trains or station platforms to hide his disability to get reelected. Most of America knew he was disabled, the knowledge just wasn’t rubbed in repeatedly by a cooperative media. For example, at a speech they would avoid taking pictures or starting the newsreel cameras until he had been assisted into position behind the lectern. But it would have been impossible for the live audience not to notice.
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I imagine that Polio and it’s consequences were a rather well known thing and that there was a consensus to look the other way over a Polio inflicted disability. while FDR did a ton of things that were just plain wrong, I don’t think the fact that the media and people kept his disability sort out the picture should be held against him.
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