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Royal Trains - are there any lines that Royal Trains have never traversed?

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deltic

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In the past Royal Trains seemed to have been used to visit some obscure parts of the network. For example just saw a timetable on eBay which shows an overnight trip from London Euston to Manchester Central via Crewe, Middlewich, Northwich, Plumley where it stayed in a sidings for a few hours and then by Sale into Manchester. On the return it picked up the Royal party at Gooestry before heading back to London.

Are there any lines which have never seen a Royal Train travel along it and any major stations that have not been used by a royal visit?
 
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TheBigD

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The royal train enjoyed an overnight stay in Whitemoor yard earlier this before continuing it's journey the following morning.
 

D6130

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Pure speculation....but how about:

Heath Juction-Coryton
Haughhead Junction-Larkhall
Holm Junction-Ardrossan Harbour
Westerton-Milngavie
Stourbridge Junction-Stourbridge Town
Bridgend-Maesteg
Cardiff Queen Street-Cardiff Bay
 

Dunnideer

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It would be quite difficult to come up with a definitive list of possiblities without trawling through the archives of Royal Train notices held by the National Railway Museum and the Royal Train Superintendent at Wolverton. As you say it has certainly been to some very obscure places in the past (especially during both world wars) and details of the routes used were - and still are - kept quite confidential so before the advent of the internet the operation wasn’t always well recorded by railway enthusiasts.

The train was the default option for long distance royal travel within the country from 1842 until the 1970s and before the mid 1990s it was much less restricted in who could be carried. Since that time due to budget restraints the train can only be used by The Queen, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, or other members of the family only under exceptional circumstances with special permission from the Queen, so before then you’d find the likes of the Queen Mother and Princess Anne frequently using it to travel to or from engagements and as a result it was used much more in then than it is today. It has also been used for visiting heads of state and for private trips not associated with an official engagement.

I suppose it also depends whether or not you count the occasions that Royal Train coaches have been coupled to service trains (that used to happen quite often in the past) or where a member of the royal family has travelled on a service train, like the Queen used to do quite frequently from Kings Cross to Kings Lynn and vice versa. You could even say there has been a Royal Train on the Victoria line since the Queen travelled in the cab from Green Park to Oxford Circus when she opened the line in March 1969.
 

Lucan

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The question is probably better asked the opposite way - show us a map of where they have been. For example I can't imagine a royal train ever went to Severn Beach unless their Maj suddenly craved a down-market seaside experience.
 

zwk500

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In addition to @Dunnideer's post, there's also a distinction between where the Royal Train has been with a Guest on board, and where it's been parked up out of the way whilst the ribbon-cutting is going on. Quite often the Queen or Prince Charles will be dropped at one location, visit a few towns in the area and be picked up from a different station on a different line.
 

Dunnideer

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In BR days the Southern Region was also very fond of using their own Pullman cars in lieu of the dedicated coaches, so a lot of journeys were made to and from Tattenham Corner (for Epsom racecourse), Portsmouth Harbour (for boarding or alighting HMY Britannia) using the Southern’s own stock vice the Train.
 
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Rescars

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I would imagine that royal trains seldom ventured far over Col Stephen's empire.
 

D6130

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I wonder if a Royal Train ever made it to Dungeness !
Potentially a secure and secluded place to park it overnight between engagements in Kent, while the occupants caught up on their sleep....although I suspect that they may have stabled it somewhere further up the branch towards Appledore with less chance of disturbance by wind and seagulls!
 

yorksrob

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Potentially a secure and secluded place to park it overnight between engagements in Kent, while the occupants caught up on their sleep....although I suspect that they may have stabled it somewhere further up the branch towards Appledore with less chance of disturbance by wind and seagulls!

The sounds of the local sheep might keep them up !
 

Snow1964

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Decades ago it was common for the royal train to be used as a base, and was often parked in obscure places overnight near where engagements ended, or near where engagements started following morning.

This seemed to include some little used branch lines where it was out of the way, and relatively safe rather than in busy towns. Presumably easier to have some police watching for trouble walking across muddy fields than parking next to places where anyone could hide.
 

yorksrob

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Hadn't thought of that....although to be honest, Kent is that close to London/Windsor that they probably wouldn't need to stay on the train overnight.

It would be interesting if one of our Royals turned out to be a train buff - it might reach some interesting bits of the network !
 

Dunnideer

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Decades ago it was common for the royal train to be used as a base, and was often parked in obscure places overnight near where engagements ended, or near where engagements started following morning.

This seemed to include some little used branch lines where it was out of the way, and relatively safe rather than in busy towns. Presumably easier to have some police watching for trouble walking across muddy fields than parking next to places where anyone could hide.
It still is used in that way today.

It would be interesting if one of our Royals turned out to be a train buff - it might reach some interesting bits of the network !
The Duke of Edinburgh certainly took a keen interest in the operation of the train.
 

Peter Mugridge

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I wonder if a Royal Train ever made it to Dungeness !
The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a Royal Carriage in their heritage collection.

It would not be a great surprise if it has been used with over the full length of the line with an "appropriate VIP" on board at some point.
 

Western Sunset

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There must be quite a few smaller stations that HM Queen alighted at or bordered the Royal Train, that one wouldn't really consider.

For example, in March 1957 the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The day ended with the royal couple making a brief visit to the new St Philip's church in Chaddesden, before joining the royal train at a suitably decorated Spondon station.
 

Dunnideer

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There must be quite a few smaller stations that HM Queen alighted at or bordered the Royal Train, that one wouldn't really consider.

For example, in March 1957 the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The day ended with the royal couple making a brief visit to the new St Philip's church in Chaddesden, before joining the royal train at a suitably decorated Spondon station.
One of the most obscure places The Queen has alighted from the Royal Train must be ‘Ferodo Platform’ which was a temporary scaffolding structure located in the car park of the Ferodo factory two miles outside Caernarfon. This was built specially for the visit of the train conveying the Royal party to the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in July 1969.
 

deltic

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I wonder if a Royal Train ever made it to Dungeness !
The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a Royal Carriage in their heritage collection.

It would not be a great surprise if it has been used with over the full length of the line with an "appropriate VIP" on board at some point.
The Queen travelled on it in 1957 but not the whole route - just between Romney and Hythe
 

yorksrob

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The Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a Royal Carriage in their heritage collection.

It would not be a great surprise if it has been used with over the full length of the line with an "appropriate VIP" on board at some point.

The Queen travelled on it in 1957 but not the whole route - just between Romney and Hythe

I was thinking more of the standard gague line from Appledore, but yes I suppose the RH&DR would be a contender. It's hosted Laurel and Hardy afterall !
 

delt1c

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The North Berwick Branch, also the Bathgate route from Edinburgh to Glasgow
 

Dunnideer

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The North Berwick Branch, also the Bathgate route from Edinburgh to Glasgow
The North Berwick line has been open since 1850 - are you sure there has never been a Royal visit by train since then? Likewise the line via Bathgate, can you be certain a Royal Train never ran over the line between opening in 1849 and closure as a through route in 1982?

This is what I was trying to get across in my earlier post, without reading through the archive of notices there’s no way to absolutely rule out most lines so most posts will just be speculation.
 

delt1c

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The North Berwick line has been open since 1850 - are you sure there has never been a Royal visit by train since then? Likewise the line via Bathgate, can you be certain a Royal Train never ran over the line between opening in 1849 and closure as a through route in 1982?

This is what I was trying to get across in my earlier post, without reading through the archive of notices there’s no way to absolutely rule out most lines so most posts will just be speculation.
I can’t confirm that Royal train has never used these lines , likewise can anyone prove they have. If there is no evidence to say they haven’t then that is what we have to go with.
Bet the total train never used the line from Polkemet junction via bents , or from Benhar junction towards Polkemet
 

John Luxton

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Has the Royal Train ever passed along the Mersey Railway Tunnel? The Stock Transfer Line or the Northern Line through the tunnels via Moorfields and Liverpool Central?
 
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