There are numerous accounts in railway literature of the Duke being a regular passenger on the Night Ferry, though always in a strictly private capacity with no official duties or engagements. According to George Behrend he would invariably return to France on the same day as he had arrived in London, using the evening down Ferry. Behrend also refers (in Grand European Expresses) to an incident in the late fifties or early sixties when the Duke's Paris-bound sleeping car was derailed on the Dunkerque tramroad and he, with the other passengers, was obliged to move into some ordinary carriages. The French apparently held the Duke in high esteem and a Wagons Lits inspector was always aboard the Night Ferry whenever he travelled on it
