Barack Obama today warned of the vast challenges ahead for Americans as he rolled by train toward Washington, where he will be inaugurated in three days as the 44th president of the US.
Mr Obama waved to crowds along the tracks from the back of a vintage train car at spots during the journey from Philadelphia to Washington.
He takes office on Tuesday amid the deepest economic crisis in generations and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast,’ President-elect Obama said as he began the trip in Philadelphia, evoking the patriots who launched the American fight for independence in the city in 1776.
‘While our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not,’ Mr Obama said. ‘What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed.’
He has promised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to jolt the country out of a deepening recession.
Mr Obama stressed in Philadelphia and at a later stop in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was joined by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, that it will take time and sacrifice to turn the economy around.
The 220km train journey launches three days of parties, concerts and shows to celebrate Mr Obama's swearing-in on Tuesday. He also will stop in Baltimore before arriving in Washington later tonight.
The trip was designed to mimic the 1861 rail journey to the capital by Abraham Lincoln before he entered the White House.
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