Tomball Presents Funeral Train Print To Bush Presidential Library

TOMBALL, TX — A photo taken by Tomball Marketing Director Mike Baxter of the Bush 4141 locomotive as it rumbled between Spring and College Station, and carried the body of President George H.W. Bush to its final resting place has gotten a lot of attention at the Tomball Depot

However, it's bound to get a whole lot more after Baxter presented the special colorized print, to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station.

While there may be hundreds of photos of the Bush 4141 train as it barreled past Magnolia, Todd Mission, and Navasota, there are none that are as unique as this print.

“I’d had enough people tell me, ‘that’s pretty good, you ought to donate that thing,’” he said

Originally, he wasn’t going to do it, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was an image that needed to be seen by everyone.

Baxter, who is a lover of trains of every sort, captured the image of hundreds of Tomball residents standing in a cold and muddy field on an overcast day to take part in history, as the train burst through a copse of trees.

The image, which showed a colored image of the Bush 4141 train and American flags clasped in the hands of residents paying their respects. Everything else is in black and white.

The coloration of the image was done by Dave Bamberg, and the image was blown up and printed on a steel plate coated in silver from Steel Magnolias in Tomball to be presented as a gift. Museum Director Warren Finch, who accepted the gift from the city, was impressed.

“We cannot accept everything, but this is very, very nice,” he said.

Baxter, who also had replica postcards produced for the Tomball Depot, recalled the time spent getting ready to greet the train in the days leading up to Dec. 6, 2018.

The City had been contacted by a Washington Post reporter a week before the funeral and asked if there would be any preparations as the train passed nearby.

That night, Baxter sat down and drafted a basic plan, not knowing if the train would pass through the center of town, or on the outskirts as it ultimately did on Dec. 6, 2018.

“We had to completely reverse it,” Baxter said about shifting to the Union Pacific tracks at Hufsmith.

In the days leading up to the event, Baxter, City Manager Rob Hauck, Mayor Gretchen Fagan, and Assistant City Manager David Esquivel went to the site outside of the city to find the best place to set up for photos.

It was raining and cold on the day Bush 4141 was to pass by. At first, there was hardly a soul outside, but as the hours passed, the crowd of residents grew from only a handful to more than 500 people who’d brought lawn chairs, or stationed themselves along the tracks.

Baxter set up his tripods and equipment in the bed of his pickup, parked about 150 feet from the tracks, and over the heads of the throng of spectators, who were bow standing and craning for a look at the oncoming train.

The whistle blew as the train approached, and those hoping to catch a bit of history held their cell phones up for a shot. But it was Baxter who captured the image.

“It all turned out fine,” Baxter said.

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Image: City of Tomball

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