Name: The US President's Bulletproof Railcar
Uploaded: 2020-04-01T01:10:22.000Z
Duration: 4 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

These days, American presidents travel around the country on Air Force One,

but in the 1940's, there was no Air Force One.

Adverbs of degree

Actually, there wasn't even a U.S. Air Force,

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first sitting U.S. President

But for most of his presidency, he used a very different form of travel.

This is the Ferdinand Magellan, officially known as U.S. Car Number 1.

120 tonnes of armor-plated, bulletproof rail car.

- The rail car is the heaviest U.S. rail car ever built.

They had to build special trucks just to support the extra weight.

The reason it only weighs 285,000 pounds is that was the weight limit

for U.S. railroad bridges and trestles at that time.

So, the entire car is not armor-proofed, only where the President is.

The car has ⅝-inch thick bulletproof steel through most of the car,

You can see where the rivets change from double rivets to single rivets.

Regular steel here versus the bulletproof steel here.

So, there's bulletproofing, there's 12-ply laminated glass,

there are two escape hatches in the car to get the President out.

It was never painted red, white, and blue like Air Force One.

they would hide it with other Pullman rail cars,

so it was basically hiding in plain sight.

- After Roosevelt's death, President Truman used the Magellan for a while,

asking the engineers to get the train up to 80mph, if they could.

Before television was a way to reach the masses,

campaigning for re-election, travelling tens of thousands of miles

between tiny stations known as whistle-stops, and making up to eight speeches a day.

And it worked. The famous moment where he held up the newspaper

that was just there, on the back of this train.

- Now in 1928, air-conditioning was accomplished by ice.

There are ice bunkers in the car, blocks of ice were put in there,

would then blow the cold air as it dropped down.

So, now we're heading into the armoured part of the car

All the rooms in the car had a phone in them.

When the car was underway, the phones were

hooked up to a radio car called the General Myer.

And when they were in stations, they were hot-wired

This is the desk the President would use, he could sign papers.

This is 12-ply, laminated glass, about three inches thick,

so all the windows from this point to the rear of the car

Stateroom C here, this is the President's quarters.

The President has a fixed bed, giving him a little bit of extra leg room.

and the seat folds up to be a toilet underneath.

The wheelchair was built specifically for Roosevelt's use in this car,

so he could get up and down the narrow hallway.

and the first of the two escape hatches are here.

What would have been a window has been converted to a steel plate

that they could push out and they could get

the President out that way if they needed to.

What looks like a soap dish hanging by the door here,

Roosevelt would sit in there and smoke cigars.

Here we have the observation lounge of the car.

This is where Presidents would sit in the back of the car

entertain their guests that were on the car with them.

It was designed if the car was ever knocked over on its side,

that most people come to visit our museum in.

This is where Presidents would give their speeches.

he pretty much lived in this car for a few months

as he did a run across the campaign trail,

and he made more than 350 whistle-stop speeches

That's what allowed him to connect with the American people.

- Of course, air travel became easier and cheaper and safer

and eventually the Ferdinand Magellan fell out of use.

but in an era where the "Trump Train" is just a metaphor,

it's interesting to note that there were other Presidents

- America as a country, except for certain parts of the country,

doesn't embrace rails the way that we used to.

it is hearkening back to a simpler place and time,

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The US President's Bulletproof Railcar

embrace

campaign

force

kinda