Britain's Royal Train, Once a Symbol of Luxury and Modernity, Is Being Retired

New York Times

01-07-2025

Since the 19th century, members of Britain's royal family have used a private train to travel the country, going to official engagements, visiting their palaces and even setting off on honeymoon in the comfort of their own specially decorated rail cars.
But Buckingham Palace said this week that the royal train had reached the end of the line and was being discontinued in a round of cost-cutting.
The decision may help the royal finances, but it means the loss of a symbol of the British monarchy that links King Charles III with Queen Victoria, his great-great-great grandmother.
Victoria​, persuaded by her husband​, Prince Albert​, became the first British monarch to make a journey by train, in June 1842​. ​Her reluctance perhaps ​stemmed from a suspicion at the time that ​traveling at the speed of trains ​would cause insanity. ​Yet she offered a positive verdict in her journal​,​ writing, 'The motion was very slight and much easier than a carriage also no dust or great heat — in fact it was delightful and so quick.'
​Above, a lithograph of Edouard Pingret's painting 'Retour du Roi a la Station de Gosport' ('The King's Return to Gosport Station'), depicting​ Victoria and Albert being met by dignitaries at Gosport Station in southern England.
In 1869, Victoria commissioned a collection of private rail cars for a royal train, including some that were decorated in 23-karat gold and blue silk. They were in service until the early 1900s. She declined to eat onboard, however, believing the practice to be bad for the digestion.
Above, the furnished interior of Victoria's saloon carriage, on display at the National Railway Museum in York, northern England, in the 1970s.
Fixing crowns on the headlights of the royal train before King George VI's trip to the West Country of England in the late 1930s.
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