History
Queen Victoria was the first British monarch to travel by train, on 13 June 1842 on the Great Western Railway (GWR), which ran the line between London and Windsor (for the Castle). Nearly sixty years later, after her funeral in 1901, Queen Victoria's coffin was taken to London Paddington station and transported on the Royal Train.
After the formation of British Railways in 1948, the individual regions continued to maintain the constituent railway companies' Royal Train carriages. A single "Royal Train" was formed in 1977 as a response to the demands of the Silver Jubilee. The Royal Family have also travelled on ordinary service trains more frequently in recent years to minimise costs.
The train currently consists of nine carriages, seven of these being of the British Rail Mark 3 design, including two that were built for the prototype HST train. Not all of these will be used to form a train, as different vehicles have specified purposes. Two locomotives are designated for use on the train and painted in the claret livery of the royal household, but are used for other traffic when not hauling the royal train. The carriages may be used for other Heads of State, but they cannot be hired by private users. When not in use, the train is stored in Wolverton, where it is maintained by an Alstom subsidiary.
Train drivers are specially selected based on their skills, including the ability to make a station stop within six inches of the designated position.
Read more about this topic: British Royal Train
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