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Queen seeks to keep Royal Train

Michael Williams,Colin Brown
Saturday 29 June 2002 19:00 EDT
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Buckingham Palace is preparing to sign a contract to run the controversial Royal Train for another two years, it emerged last night. If the deal goes ahead, it will fly in the face of a Commons select committee, which is expected to be critical of the Royal Family's transport spending.

Figures released last week by Sir Michael Peat, Keeper of the Privy Purse, show that, although the costs of royal rail travel fell last year, the taxpayer was still paying £52 for every mile a Royal Family member travelled. The Royal Train was used just 15 times, at a cost of £675,000.

Over the past few months, however, the train, which has recently been cut from 14 to nine coaches, has been more intensively used, carrying the Queen across the country for her golden jubilee tours of the regions. It had been widely believed that it would be scrapped after the tours end in August.

The smooth running of the excursions, during which the Queen has slept on board the train on 17 nights, has reportedly so impressed her that palace officials are seeking a new deal with the freight company English, Welsh and Scottish Railway, which staffs and runs it. The train itself was built by British Rail for the Silver Jubilee in the 1977, though EWS provides three dedicated locomotives, Prince William, Prince Henry and Windsor Castle.

After the first leg of her tour of Wales this month, when the train was hauled by a vintage steam locomotive along the coast from Holyhead, the Queen conveyed the message that it had been "one of the most successful days ever by the Royal Train" and that she had enjoyed "a really evocative day". However, according to the official figures released last week, the most comprehensive ever, it cost £24,021 on one occasion last year for the Prince of Wales to use the train to travel from London Euston on a return trip to Newcastle, and £17,486 to travel from Bicester in Oxfordshire to Edinburgh. A journey by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh from Slough to Haverfordwest in Wales cost £18,277.

Earlier this year, Sir Michael Peat told the Commons Public Accounts Committee that there were "considerable benefits" for the Queen in allowing the train to take the strain. He said that helicopters were often grounded by bad weather or found it difficult to land at dusk. "The Queen has the advantage of being able to go straight to the centre of cities, to stay on board overnight and have meetings or entertain people."

He told Gerry Steinberg, Labour MP for Durham and a critic of the costs, that, unlike ministers, who could get up at 6am to make a speech in Newcastle at 9.30am, it would be unfair to expect "a 75-year-old woman who had a heavy day ahead meeting hundreds of people to do the same".

However, critics say this does not apply to the Prince of Wales, who, until this year was the most frequent user of the train. As well as separate carriages for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince has his own lounge car, with easy chairs, a writing desk and pictures from his private collection.

Supporters of the train say that, compared with air travel, it is relatively straightforward to provide security. Howard Johnston, a transport analyst and adviser to rail companies, said: "Everything has its price. The June 11 trip along the North Wales coast cost £17,000. Not a bad price, given that she had full Special Branch protection. And most people would believe it right that she should travel with dignity."

Faded and dated, but still grand

Unlike Queen Victoria, who had 16 royal trains and insisted on the coal in the locomotives being whitewashed in case the dust got in her eyes, today's royals travel in less luxurious vehicles.

The palace's director of travel, Group Captain Tim Hewlett, says: "People have the perception that it's like the Orient Express, but there are not many bathroom furnishings you couldn't get at Homebase or B &Q.'' On the other hand, cynics might observe you don't get your own ensuite bathroom, bedroom and sitting room on the Scotrail sleeper to Glasgow.

Paintings and prints from the royal collections line the walls and the food, cooked by a proper chef, is a world away from the Virgin burger. The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the Queen's private secretary all have their own air-conditioned carriages. The Queen's dresser has her own bedroom and bathroom next to the Queen's quarters. Other royal staff have their own sleeping compartments. Even so, the claret-painted coaches built in the 1970s have a dated and rather faded appearance, with little change to the original pastel interior designs by Sir Hugh Casson.

Life on the Royal Train is not all cucumber sandwiches, Dubonnets and deference. Two years ago a royal bodyguard discharged two gunshots at 5am while the Queen and the Duke were sleeping two carriages away. The Queen, it was reported, went on to an "unruffled breakfast". And the Duke displays a sense of humour by displaying a copy of his pensioner's railcard on the wall of his sitting room.

Michael Williams

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