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Biden to Take Amtrak Home After Inauguration

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D

Dalek

Member
Biden to Take Amtrak Home After Inauguration

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be leaving Washington the same way he entered it: by Amtrak.

In a tweet sent Tuesday, the outgoing vice president wrote, ”Jill and I will head home to Delaware the same way I have for 44 years: by train."

Biden's loyalties to Amtrak took shape during his time as a freshman senator from Delaware.

In the wake of a tragic car accident that claimed the lives of his first wife and infant daughter in December 1972, only a few weeks after he first won election to the Senate, Biden contemplated giving up his seat to instead stay home with his sons, Beau and Hunter.
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Eventually, he opted for a different plan: a daily commute that would take him by train from Delaware to Washington, D.C., in order for him to be home with his sons at night after work. This day-to-day travel lasted throughout Biden's 36-year Senate career, earning him the nickname ”Amtrak Joe."

One of Biden's most high-profile commutes came in 2009 when he traveled by train with then President-elect Barack Obama to D.C. three days before they took the oath of office. The action was inspired by Abraham Lincoln's journey by rail to the capital before his own inaugural festivities in 1861.

The Wilmington Amtrak station, which also serves local commuter trains, was officially renamed the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station in 2011 after its most well-known rider and supporter.
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D

Dalek

Member
chaobreaker said:
Damn, didn't know Biden lost his first family years ago.
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It's tragic.


http://people.com/celebrity/joe-bidens-family-tragedies/

In 1972, just one month after winning his first Senate race, Biden received a phone call telling him his wife and college sweetheart Neilia and their 13-month-old daughter Naomi had been killed in a car accident on their way to buy a Christmas tree.

“By the tone of the phone call, you just knew,” he said in 2012, addressing the families of fallen U.S. soldiers. “You just felt it in your bones: Something bad happened.”

As he left the U.S. Capitol building, “I remember looking up and saying, ‘God,’ as if I was talking to God myself, ‘You can t be good, how can you be good?’ ” he recalled, telling the families, “For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they had been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they would never get there again.”

The couple’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, who were 4 and 3 at the time, were also in the car and badly injured.

When Biden was sworn into the Senate in 1973, he did so at Beau’s Wilmington, Delaware bedside, which he rarely left.
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“I was supposed to be sworn in with everyone else that year in ’73, but I wouldn’t go down. So … the secretary of the Senate [came] to swear me in, in the hospital room with my children,” he recalled in a Yale University commencement address less than two weeks ago.
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Biden, who commuted from the family home in Wilmington, Del., to Washington, D.C., also reflected on why it was so important for him to be there for his kids.

“I began to commute thinking I was only going to stay a little while – four hours a day, every day – from Washington to Wilmington, which I ve done for over 37 years,” he told the Yale students. “I did it because I wanted to be able to kiss them goodnight and kiss them in the morning the next day. No Ozzie and Harriet breakfast or great familial thing, just climb in bed with them. Because I came to realize that a child can hold an important thought, something they want to say to their mom and dad, maybe for 12 or 24 hours, and then it’s gone. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. And it all adds up.

But looking back on it, the truth be told, the real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me. Some at the time wrote and suggested that Biden can’t be a serious national figure. If he was, he’d stay in Washington more, attend to more important events. It s obvious he’s not serious. He goes home after the last vote.

But I realized I didn’t miss a thing. Ambition is really important. You need it. And I certainly have never lacked in having ambition. But ambition without perspective can be a killer.”

And, the close father-and-son relationship was something that Beau proudly expressed as well. As a tribute to Biden s 72nd birthday in November, he Tweeted a photo of himself as a young boy with his dad at a baseball game.

“Happy Birthday to the best coach I could have asked for. Love you Pop.”

Like his father, Beau was also a family man who was devoted to his wife Hallie and their kids Natalie and Hunter.
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beau-biden-4-435.jpg

Beau Biden (left) and Joe Biden in the ’70s

“For all that Beau Biden achieved in his life, nothing made him prouder; nothing made him happier; nothing claimed a fuller focus of his love and devotion than his family,” President Obama said in a statement after Beau’s death.
In December, he happily tweeted a photo of his children with their new puppy.

“Say hello to Indi, our adopted 10 month old lab #rescuedog & newest member of the family!” he wrote.

Now the family is left to mourn yet another member gone too soon.

“It’s a family that’s had some real tragedy,” said Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Joe Biden who filled his Senate seat after he became vice president in 2009. “I would just say he was the very best of us. He was special, such a good person.”

Kaufman, who has known Beau since childhood continued: “He was young and everybody I talked to who knew him in politics, which is such a tough business, commented on what a good person he was and what a great future he had.”

Speaking to the families of fallen soldiers in 2012, the Vice President – who had his own brush with death in 1988 after undergoing surgery for two brain aneurysms – sounded a hopeful note to those dealing with grief.

“There will come a day,” he told them, “when the thought of your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.”
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D

Dalek

Member
GoldenEye 007 said:
I assume nobody rides it. But if so, yeesh, those Secret Service details.
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The Amtrak service on the East coast is really amazing. When I lived in Wilmington I would take it to NY, DC and even all the way to South Carolina to visit family. Beats driving.
 
O

Omegasquash

Member
God, I'm going to miss him. I hope he stays active in some capacity.

As an aside, I could see him being the anti-Trump on Twitter.
 
S

sssstententen

Member
The guy is a literal American hero in my mind. Much smaller tragedies have destroyed lesser men.

One of my favorite politicans of all time.
 
F

Futureman

Member
Obama and Biden are two of the most personable/likable people I've ever seen in politics in my life.

what a stark change now with Trump/Pence.
 
S

sugarhigh4242

Banned
Its nearly $200 to take the Acela round trip from Philadelphia to NYC. Maybe Biden could've done something to make Amtrak more accessible to working schlubs during his time in office.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
sugarhigh4242 said:
Its nearly $200 to take the Acela round trip from Philadelphia to NYC. Maybe Biden could've done something to make Amtrak more accessible to working schlubs during his time in office.
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Remember when we were going to have nationwide rail that actually worked?

Oh wait, all the fucking Republican governors intentionally sabotaged it because "fuck Obama"
 
S

sssstententen

Member
sugarhigh4242 said:
Its nearly $200 to take the Acela round trip from Philadelphia to NYC. Maybe Biden could've done something to make Amtrak more accessible to working schlubs during his time in office.
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Glad you edited because I was gonna say theres no way its $400 when its about 80-100 a trip, for business class seats.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
GoldenEye 007 said:
I assume nobody rides it. But if so, yeesh, those Secret Service details.
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It's the Northeast Corridor, so it would be the same train he took to Washington, just going north. It's the most used route Amtrak has.

smokeandmirrors said:
Pfft he'll take septa regional rail and like it!
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Also an option. He could even take a bus! But I imagine he'll want to use Amtrak just for old times sake. 30th Street Station is right next to UPenn so it would work nicely.

sugarhigh4242 said:
Its nearly $200 to take the Acela round trip from Philadelphia to NYC. Maybe Biden could've done something to make Amtrak more accessible to working schlubs during his time in office.
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Acela is ridic, but it's nowhere near that expensive for regular NEC service. I think it's $55 each way? Still too much though.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
It's the Northeast Corridor, so it would be the same train he took to Washington, just going north. It's the most used route Amtrak has.



Also an option. He could even take a bus! But I imagine he'll want to use Amtrak just for old times sake. 30th Street Station is right next to UPenn so it would work nicely.



Acela is ridic, but it's nowhere near that expensive for regular NEC service. I think it's $55 each way? Still too much though.
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It's still better than flying. Similar price, more comfortable, no security check, honestly when I'm travelling in the Northeast I prefer it to pretty much everything else.
 
S

sugarhigh4242

Banned
sersteven said:
Glad you edited because I was gonna say theres no way its $400 when its about 80-100 a trip, for business class seats.
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sorry yeah, i had priced it out for 2 the other day and was shocked. $200 is still unreal though. The for-profit megabus costs $20 and takes about the same time. Granted it's not as nice, but the difference isn't 10x.
 
S

sugarhigh4242

Banned
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
It's the Northeast Corridor, so it would be the same train he took to Washington, just going north. It's the most used route Amtrak has.



Also an option. He could even take a bus! But I imagine he'll want to use Amtrak just for old times sake. 30th Street Station is right next to UPenn so it would work nicely.



Acela is ridic, but it's nowhere near that expensive for regular NEC service. I think it's $55 each way? Still too much though.
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But Acela is supposed to be the thing that catches us up to 1970s europe. NEC is some whack shit, and it's STILL expensive as you said.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
B-Dubs said:
It's still better than flying. Similar price, more comfortable, no security check, honestly when I'm travelling in the Northeast I prefer it to pretty much everything else.
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Absolutely, if I am going to a destination on the corridor I would take the train in all cases. It's honestly enjoyable for me. I don't really know how feasible it is to use as an every day option. I was looking online at Amtrak's site, and apparently you can get monthly passes for $1400 which give you unlimited trips, but there are some train restrictions. Still expensive, but if I was going to commute by car it would probably cost as much or more.
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
It's the Northeast Corridor, so it would be the same train he took to Washington, just going north. It's the most used route Amtrak has.
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Well that's what I mean if it was busy. Could you imagine the Secret Service detail required there on a regular basis?

Edit:

FyreWulff said:
Train security for the Secret Service has to be a goddamn nightmare. Everyone knows exactly where you're going and can see you from miles away.
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.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
Absolutely, if I am going to a destination on the corridor I would take the train in all cases. It's honestly enjoyable for me. I don't really know how feasible it is to use as an every day option. I was looking online at Amtrak's site, and apparently you can get monthly passes for $1400 which give you unlimited trips, but there are some train restrictions. Still expensive, but if I was going to commute by car it would probably cost as much or more.
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As an every day thing it wouldn't work, but then again there aren't many jobs I'd be willing to travel that far for on a daily basis.

GoldenEye 007 said:
Well that's what I mean if it was busy. Could you imagine the Secret Service detail required there on a regular basis?

Edit:


.
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I was reading a thing about it the other day and actually it didn't sound too bad. I think they just reserve a car on the train and that's about it. I remember reading most people had no idea they were on it with Biden.
 
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