— -- Good morning, America!
Welcome to one of the most ambitious network television projects ever undertaken, GMA's "Whistle-Stop '08" Tour - the first show ever to broadcast live from a moving train!
Over the course of the next two months, ABC News' anchors and correspondents and USA Today's reporters and photographers will report on one state each day in the run-up to the historic vote Nov. 4. We'll hit all fifty states in fifty days! The trip begins right here, in Lenox, Massachusetts, where we've just pulled in to kick of the show's five-day Whistletop
Yesterday we got a glimpse of the impending frenzy.
Inside the Worcester train station Sunday when the massive GMA team arrived, hundreds of people were jumping up and down to catch a glimpse, screaming their hellos. Two entire high school bands and a team of cheerleaders were only part of the massive celebration. What a welcome! Local school mascots were everywhere. And when ABC News "Good Morning America" anchors Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Chris Cuomo walked in, the place went nuts!
It was no calmer on the train.
Writers, producers, assistants, technicians, photographers, camera crews – everyone racing through the claustrophobic corridors of the train, getting into position, yelling instructions into walkie-talkies or buzzing around an electrified hive of ad hoc laptop- and wire-filled workstations.
I'm Lee Ferran, an associate producer at the show and this incredible chaos will be my home for the next week as "GMA" races across seven states on our part of ABC News' unprecedented "50 States in 50 Days" initiative to report from every state in the union in the 50 days leading up to the presidential election.
This blog is your backstage pass. See how the anchors live and how we get everything done going 60 miles an hour down the tracks and through America's backyard. Some anchors may even be blogging directly. So be sure to check back and check often.
While other ABC News divisions will be traveling to other regions around the nation in the days ahead, it's doubtful they'll get to travel with as much style and enthusiasm as "Good Morning America."
See you on the rails.