Four days of ceremonies, in Washington and Houston, will honor Bush.
Funeral ceremonies for former President George H.W. Bush are slated to begin Monday in Houston and then continue in Washington, D.C., before returning to the Bayou City for a service followed by burial in College Station.
The four days of ceremonies include two services, two days of lying in state, a funeral train custom-painted like Air Force One, and interment at the George Bush Presidential Library & Museum, according to the Department of Defense’s official schedule.
The 41st president’s death, which was announced Friday by his office, came less than eight months after that of his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush.
Bush, 94, was the last president to have served in the military during World War II. A former congressman, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and chairman of the Republican National Committee, Bush spent a lifetime in public service and ultimately served one term as president.
The ceremonies honoring his life begin at 10:30 a.m. Monday, with a departure ceremony at Ellington Field. The former president’s remains will then be flown to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, with an arrival ceremony scheduled there that afternoon.
His remains will then be taken to the U.S. Capitol to lie in state in the rotunda with a guard of honor in attendance. On Wednesday at 11 a.m. there will be a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral.
Afterward, he’ll be flown back to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before a service there at 10 a.m. Thursday.
Following the service, his remains will be taken by motorcade to the Union Pacific Railroad Westfield Auto Facility in Spring then taken by train to the George Bush Presidential Library & Museum in College Station for interment alongside Barbara and their daughter Robin.
The route, as outlined by Union Pacific Railroad, will pass through Hufsmith, Pinehurst, Magnolia, Todd Mission, Stoneham, Navasota, Millican and Wellborn.
Following a funeral service earlier that morning at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, the train is scheduled to depart at 1 p.m. from the Union Pacific Railroad Westfield Auto Facility, which will be closed to the public.
It will take about two hours and 25 minutes for the train to reach College Station, across from Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field. The locomotive, which can travel up to 70 mph, will go slower than usual track speed and will not make any stops along the way.
The procession falls in line with a long history of presidential funeral trains that transported the bodies of storied men to their places of burial, sometimes through multiple states, according to Union Pacific. They include Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant and Franklin Roosevelt..
Bush’s body will be transported by Locomotive 4141, painted with sleek lines in blue, gray and white, to evoke Air Force One and, as the railroad puts it, the “forward motion representing progress.”