KEY POINTS:
In freezing temperatures, President-elect Barack Obama began the final leg of a journey that began two years ago on the steps of the Illinois legislature, and will end on Wednesday (NZT) with his inauguration as America's first black president.
That final trip - a 220km train ride from
Philadelphia to Washington - was a conscious echo of a similar pre-inauguration journey taken in 1861 by Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War President who freed America's slaves.
The streets of the capital are already closing ahead of the concerts and parades that will make his inauguration the biggest event of its kind in American history.
On board the "Obama Express" were the incoming First Family: Mr Obama's wife Michelle and their two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.
Also on board were 40 "everyday" Americans who had been chosen to represent Mr Obama's pledge for a more open and responsive style of government.
He had met many of them during his presidential campaign, including Iraq veteran Tony Fischer and Lily Ledbetter, who fought sex discrimination at a Goodyear plant in Alabama.
Mr Obama waved to crowds from the back of the vintage railcar, stopping twice for rallies in freezing weather during the more than seven hour trip.
In Philadelphia, his speech - while hinting at the economic crisis and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - evoked the patriots who launched the American fight for independence in the city in 1776.
"Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. While our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed."
When President Lincoln took a similar route in 1861, he was twice forced to adopt disguises to avoid potential Confederate assassins.
Mr Obama, by contrast, was met with screaming crowds as his train slowed repeatedly at stations on the route to allow the public a glance at history in the making.
In Claymont, Delaware, several hundred gathered to cheer and wave. In Edgewood, Maryland, the waiting crowd chanted "Obama" as the train rolled by.
"This is more than an ordinary train ride, this is a new beginning," Vice-President-elect Joe Biden told the crowd as he joined the entourage in Wilmington, Delaware.
But there was still a whiff of the danger the new President faces. The train was surrounded by a moving "air exclusion corridor" as it wound past chemical plants secured by the Secret Service and over rivers from which boats had been banished in the name of security.
Mr Obama arrived in Washington to a city gripped with inauguration fever and already filling with the two million people expected to take part.
Mr Obama was to make his first public appearance in Washington today when he opens a concert at the Lincoln Memorial, starring U2 and Bruce Springsteen.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AGENCIES
