Obama, rolling to Washington, sees challenges ahead

BALTIMORE: Barack Obama warned Americans on Saturday of the vast challenges ahead as he rolled by train toward Washington, kicking off three days of celebration of his inauguration as the 44th president of the United States.

Obama waved to crowds from the back of a vintage train car and stopped twice for rallies in frigid weather on the journey from Philadelphia to Washington, where 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,” 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,” Obama said.

Sunday, Reuters