Wiring the Freedom Train

[Omaha Steve]

https://ibew.org/electrical_worker/wiring-the-freedom-train/?ref=news

July 1, 2025

On Feb. 4, 1975, Newberry Electric Corp. in Richmond, Calif., received a call from the Freedom Train Project asking if a crew of electricians could be ready tomorrow. Time was running short, and the company needed 12 train cars to be custom wired with only nine days until delivery.

Members of Martinez Local 302 were on site the next morning.

The Freedom Train Project was one of the many public events that were part of the U.S. bicentennial celebration in 1975-76. The project had assembled a 26-car steam-powered train dubbed the American Freedom Train and filled the 12 display cars with thousands of artifacts documenting the country’s proud heritage.

Beginning its journey in Wilmington, Del., on April 1, the train made stops in all 48 contiguous states. Over the next 21 months, it traveled up the East Coast, across the Midwest and the Great Plains, to the Pacific Northwest and down to Southern California, then to Texas and the South, finally arriving in Miami on Dec. 26, 1976.

FULL story at link above.