how many of the women in this and the other photos came out to pay their respects with their hair up in curlers! I guess it was just a spur of the moment decision to run out and watch this train go past. My family in So Cal watched the entire train trip from DC to NYC on television. During the funeral in St. Patrick's Cathedral the next day, I remember Andy Williams, with that soaring high tenor of his, singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" with never a break in his voice. I don't know how he did it.

Am I the only one who misses the bold bright colors of '50s-'60s cars? Today's parking lots are a sea of boring pale earth-tones. Nor do I recommend standing on today's cars. They don't build them like they use to.

I watched the train's passage on the TV in my parents' home on Long Island. Nine days later I was inducted into the Army on my way to Vietnam. 1968 was not a happy year.

We watched from some crossing in Maryland, and many people placed coins on the rails in hopes of having a flattened keepsake of that sad event. I don't remember much but I do recall how quiet the crowd was, trying (I realized later) to demonstrate respect in the only manner possible in those circumstances. When JFK was killed, I happened to be in downtown D.C. and when I tried to make a call to my Silver Spring office, I was puzzled by the payphones not working because "all circuits are busy". Still not knowing what was going on, as I drove past the U.S. Capitol (you could do that then) I was amazed by all of the people out on the steps, many holding transistor radios to their ears. Then I turned on my car radio.

Let's see two men and a boy perched on your modern car's fender and see how it fares.

I just love all of these motion-blurred snapshots of our citizens all turning out for a fleeting view of something that moved them, not necessarily putting on their Sunday best, in the year of my birth. The ordinariness of the scenes looks not like today, but at the same time not at all different.

For me, it is not the pink tailfins that place it before my time, but the fact of people turning out en masse to watch a moving train. This was the moment in which traditional passenger rail was in its death throes, but not quite dead. Most communities only had a few TV channels, and many people didn't have air conditioning at home. I suppose nowadays we'd prefer the experience to be virtual.

I'm not quite sure what would inspire such a turnout today. Let's not have any assassinations to answer that question.

As the funeral train passed through Elizabeth, New Jersey near the start of its journey, the crowds were so large that they spilled over onto other, active tracks, and two people were fatally struck by a different train. As a result, the Penn Central Railroad ordered all train movements stopped whenever the funeral train passed through an area.

@Don: some of the JFK conspiracy theorists have cited the DC phone system's temporary overload as evidence of a government conspiracy.