UPDATE: Obama completes train tour; presidency looms ahead

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama has arrived in Washington at the end of a majestic train ride across the frigid mid-Atlantic seaboard, moving another step closer to the presidency.

By: Associated Press | WNCT
Published: January 17, 2009

---Update---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama has arrived in Washington at the end of a majestic train ride across the frigid mid-Atlantic seaboard, moving another step closer to the presidency.

Celebratory crowds braved subfreezing weather to salute Obama along his 137-mile journey to the nation's capital from Philadelphia.

For his part, Obama often couched his moment of triumph in sobering words, saying the country is burdened by staggering problems like the economy, global warming and war.

He will take the oath of office Tuesday as the nation's 44th president, succeeding George W. Bush.

---Original Story---
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama's historical whistle stop tour to Washington has gotten under way after an enthusiastic send-off from Philadelphia, the cradle of American democracy.

Obama and his family and a traveling party of guests, public officials and reporters rolled out of the city's 30th St. Station shortly before noon under a frigid, but sunny and clear blue sky.

As the train lumbered out of the station, a conductor bellowed: "Welcome aboard the 2009 inaugural train to DC."

The route - the same that Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half ago - was 137 miles long, and Obama's arrival in the nation's capital was scheduled after the fall of dark Saturday.