I EXPECT that like me, many people of a certain age feel the decision to give up the Royal Train is yet another example of the negative changes that are happening to the country. That it has been made by a King who has built an image which depends on traditional values and continuity has made it more of a surprise. One has only to think of his championing of more formal architecture, traditional village life and the wide use of conservation in agriculture and countryside matters to consider that pressure has been brought by some parsimonious grey-faced accountants.
I have reason to feel the demise of the Royal Train more keenly than most because of a personal connection: my paternal grandfather, Edwin Bertie Shaw, was Inspector of Royal Trains on the Southern Railway during the Second World War. As such he made numerous journeys with King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and the young Princesses. These journeys were made in sometimes dangerous conditions due to enemy bombing raids, which entailed the parking of the Royal Train as bombs were falling on the line. The Royal Train was designated as ‘Mr Grove’s Special’ in case the Germans had access to the railway company’s plans for possible targets! This all happened before I was born, but various mementos and pictures were scattered around my grandfather’s house. As is frequently the case, my grandfather, whom I saw frequently when I was young, did not talk much about his experiences, but he was justifiably proud of his position, having started to work on the railway at the age of 13.
Aside from regret at the passing of an institution with a personal connection, I feel that the Royal Train and the wider use of rail travel by the Royal Family was something of an endorsement of railways while road use and air travel became more ubiquitous. I lived in Ely for many years, and some members of the Royal Family were frequent travellers to and from King’s Lynn en route for Sandringham. On a number of these occasions they used regular service trains, in which they had reserved first-class compartments with discreet security on board. On one memorable occasion I travelled on a peak-time service from King’s Cross in the same carriage as the Queen: I was standing. The train was held for two minutes whilst she boarded from a cleared platform. When one disgruntled passenger grumbled about this minor delay, he got very short shrift from his fellow travellers. One young lady who had come up from King’s Lynn that morning was delighted. That explained a mystery for her: she had arrived slightly late at King’s Lynn station that morning to find her train still standing at an almost empty platform, apart from the Station Master walking beside an elderly lady wearing a headscarf. She had dashed past them to board the train. She now knew the identity of the lady in question!
While living in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Jaipur, India, we often had major traffic disruptions when the Prime Minster or some cabinet minister travelled about the city. On one occasion I was held with all the passengers on an internal flight in a small room while a minister’s mother boarded the flight, which had already been delayed by her arriving late at the airport. I took some delight in explaining to the people in my office how the Royal Family went about their travels in Britain.
We, as a nation, are spared the excesses of megalomania by our rulers, and the loss of the Royal Train must be seen as a step in the wrong direction. Surely helicopters and private planes will not be cheaper than maintaining or even renewing a dedicated train? The security for VIPs traveling will in no way be different and there are always safety issues, which as we well know, are less for railways than most forms of travel. The retention of the Royal Train could have been a point of credit for the King over creeping bureaucracy, which he has singularly missed.
