It would be a fitting moment for a man who has made about 8,000 rounds on the same track during his time as senator and vice president – who received the moniker “Amtrak Joe” – and who left Washington four years ago on his last day as vice president.
Biden’s deep ties with Amtrak and Railroad Hark in his early days in the U.S. Senate. After losing his wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, Biden rode to and from Washington almost every day to help raise his sons Hunter and Pew. Biden became one of the largest supporters of the railroad system on Capitol Hill, and as vice president continued to take the train to Wilmington.
The approximately 90-minute ride between Wilmington and D.C. was so central to Biden’s story that the then senator began his first presidential campaign in 1987 at his own train station.
He continued, “This is more valuable to me than the fee printed on the ticket.”
When he began his travels in the 1970s, Biden was a somewhat anonymous senator. But in the eight years he has been vice president, whenever he returns by train he will be surrounded by secret service and his reservation for security reasons will remain anonymous.
“You don’t have to do your daily commute every day with the next president of the United States,” Biden said at the Baltimore stop. “Everybody, this’s more than just a normal train journey.
Surrounded by his family at the dedication ceremony, Biden said, “Actually, all the good or bad that happened in my life, the first people I met were on the train, and the people who work at Amtrak would warm me up. . “
“I did – they actually counted it, the conductors – 8,200 trips, over 2 million miles on Amtrak,” Biden told CNN in an interview. “Traveling two hundred and fifty-nine miles a day, not every day, but an average of 217 days a year. This is my family, which is why I wanted to go home the way I came.”
“Full circle,” Jill Biden interrupted.
“The whole circle,” Joe Biden said.
However, those Democrats were proven wrong, and Biden began his third and final successful attempt in 2019. On the day he announced his candidacy, Biden took a train from Washington to Wilmington. After the first presidential debate in September, he campaigned by train through eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
During his final train journey as vice president in 2017, Biden said riding the rails was a reminder that his success and life were more political.
“What I did, really, was you ride here at night on the way home, you look out, you look out the windows, you look at the lights and I’m really telling you, what’s going on in that kitchen table,” Biden told CNN, Gestured. “What are people thinking about, and what are their real concerns?”
When Biden arrived in Delaware that day, he was greeted by a hero: a parade band, friends and family, and a rally he stopped in tears.
“You were successful with me,” Biden said at the end of his speech. “You were with me in failure. You all stayed with me.”
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