The Gratitude Train arrived in New York Harbor aboard the Magellan, a French merchant ship, in February 1949. The Gratitude Train, a gift from France, contained forty-nine boxcars known as Forty and Eights. Each car was filled with gifts to the people of the United States from the people of France.
In 1947 an American Friendship Train carried $40,000,000 in relief supplies to France and Italy. Initiated by Drew Pearson, an American newspaper columnist, over 700 carloads of food, fuel, and clothing, donated by the citizens of the United States, brought relief to war torn Europe.
A French railworker and war veteran, Andre Picard, initiated the project of a French Thank You Train. The Train has such appeal that the project, which began with one boxcar, ended with a train of forty-nine boxcars; one for each of the forty-eight states. The forty-ninth was to be shared by the District of Columbia and the Territory of Hawaii.
Even though many French families had very little left after the war, over 6,000,000 families contributed something to fill the cars. The 52,000 gifts included children's drawings, ashtrays made of broken mirrors, worn shoes, hand crocheted doilies, a jeweled Legion d’Honneur once presented to Napoleon, the bugle which signaled the Amistice signing at Compiegne in 1918, fifty rare paintings, the first motorcycle ever built, and a Louis XV carriage. The President of France contributed forty-nine delicate Sevres vases and the city of Lyon provided dozens of silk wedding dresses. By 1948 the boxcars were filled to capacity. When the Magellan sailed from LeHavre, nine thousand gifts had to be left on the docks.