BUSH FUNERAL | Private, graveside service ends; Bush buried

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas A&M says the private, graveside service for George H.W. Bush's family members has ended and the former president has been buried.

Tonight's ceremony concludes days of funeral activities honoring the 41st president.

After lying in state at the U.S. Capitol and a funeral at Washington's National Cathedral, Bush had a funeral at the Houston church where his family worshiped.

His remains then rode on a special funeral train to College Station, where he was buried at his presidential library at Texas A&M University. Before the closed service, about 2,100 cadets in dress uniforms lined the road to the graveside and saluted as the motorcade passed.

Family spokesman Jim McGrath says President George W. Bush has left the library and other relatives have, too.

4:49 p.m.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Train No. 4141 arrived at 3:45 p.m. Central Time in College Station, where President George H.W. Bush will be buried at a private ceremony next to his wife, Barbara, who died in April, and his daughter Robin, who died at age 3 in 1953.

Family members, including former President George W. Bush, were aboard the train headed to Texas A&M University.

The train's sixth car, a converted baggage hauler called "Council Bluffs," was fitted with transparent sides to allow the mourners lining the tracks views of Bush's flag-draped coffin. The train rolled past the flashing lights of fire trucks, some hoisting American flags from their ladders, and past state troopers who saluted from the side of the tracks.

It is the eighth presidential funeral train in U.S. history and the first since Dwight D. Eisenhower's body traveled from the National Cathedral in Washington through seven states to his Kansas hometown of Abilene 49 years ago. Abraham Lincoln's funeral train was the first, in 1865.

2:54 p.m.

HOUSTON (AP) — Crowds have lined the route of the special funeral train that is taking former President George H.W. Bush to the city where he'll be buried.

People waved American flags and cheered as the number "4141" train passed by on its roughly 70-mile journey from the Houston suburb of Spring to College Station.

The casket of the 41st president is visible through large windows on the side of the train car.

Among those paying tribute to Bush was 38-year-old Andy Gordon, of Magnolia, who took his two young daughters to see the train as it passed through nearby Pinehurst.

He says, "Hopefully, my children will remember the significance and the meaning of today."

Bush will be buried later today during a private service in the family's plot on the grounds of his presidential library at Texas A&M University.

12:26 p.m.

HOUSTON (AP) — America's final farewell to George H.W. Bush shifted to Texas today, with his friend and former Secretary of State James Baker addressing him as "Jefe," Spanish for "boss," and celebrating him as a president with "the courage of a warrior but the greater courage of a peacemaker."

Baker fought back tears as he concluded his eulogy.

Country music's Oak Ridge Boys, among the president's favorites, sang "Amazing Grace" and Reba McEntire offered "The Lord's Prayer" as three days of official ceremonies in Washington gave way to more personal touches for the Bush in Texas. The night before, more than 11,000 people paid their respects as his casket lay in repose all night at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, where his family worshiped.

At today's funeral, Baker said, "The world became a better place because George Bush occupied the White House for four years." He said that Bush embodied some of the nation's best values, "temperate" in thought, word and deed, "our nation's very best one-term president."

George P. Bush, the former president's grandson and the only member of the political dynasty still holding elected office, as Texas land commissioner, subsequently struck a more personal tone with the man he and the younger generations called "gampy."

The services attracted local sports stars including Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt featured hymns chosen and loved by the former president.

The nation's capital bid him goodbye Wednesday in a Washington funeral service that offered high praise for the last of the presidents to have fought in World War II – and a hefty dose of humor about a man whose speaking delivery was once described as a cross between Mister Rogers and John Wayne.

Bush's casket returned for the services in Houston, a ride on a special funeral train and eventual burial at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place is alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia at age 3.

In the service at Washington National Cathedral, three former presidents and President Donald Trump looked on as George W. Bush eulogized his father as "the brightest of a thousand points of light."

The cathedral service was a tribute to a president, a patriarch and a faded political era that prized military service and public responsibility. It was laced with indirect comparisons to Trump but was not consumed by them, as speakers focused on Bush's public life and character – with plenty of cracks about his goofy side, too.