The nation's last remaining Freedom Train took its final ride up the Peninsula Monday morning.
The train took off at 9:45 a.m. from San Jose. For 32 years, the Freedom Train had been running between San Jose's Diridon station and the Caltrain stop in San Francisco.
But this year will be the last ride, according to the organizers, because of declining ticket sales in recent years. Monday morning's sold out crowd of 1,400 riders boarded the train for their journey up the Peninsula into the City--a 54 mile trip. That is roughly the same distance Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched from Selma to Montgomery 50 years ago.
His wife Coretta Scott King specifically chose this route when setting up the Freedom Trains because of what the distance symbolized. She established more than two dozen routes nationwide, and this was the only one that remained in 2015.
Riders said they were disheartened to hear this would be the last time the train would run.
"It hurts," Freedom Train rider Tenora Young said. "I wish I could afford it, keep it going. If I had the funds, I'd keep it rolling all over."
Mike Jones, who has been riding on the train for years, said the train served as an important symbol for all generations.
"So if you don't have this, especially for the young people that need to understand movements like this, that made the progress possible, if you don't have these symbolic movements, then you don't have that ideal," Jones said. "If you don't have the ideal, you don't have the progress."
A big line of people waited to board the train. But the Martin Luther King Jr. Association believes the train only sold out because people heard it was the last year for the train.
The organization said it has not seen a crowd this size over the past several years and have relied on the local fraternal order of police to foot the difference--which they can no longer do.
"There's so many MLK events, everybody's competing against each other," organization spokeswoman Kathleen Flynn said. "There's all these wonderful places to go and things to do, and I just think it's a sign of the times."
After the train arrived in San Francisco, the civil rights leader was honored with a parade and march from the Fourth and King Caltrain Station to Yerba Buena Gardens to commemorate the Selma to Montgomery march.
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The last #freedomtrain on its final trip 54 mile to #sanfrancisco, roughly the same distance #mlk marched f... https://t.co/zsf4VEMjGD — Bob Redell (@BobNBC) January 19, 2015
Interest in #freedomtrain has declined in recent years because of competing #mlkday events acc to org. Henc... https://t.co/Du5HALeWqG — Bob Redell (@BobNBC) January 19, 2015
