Royal Train
 

Its me again with my little lorry. I was delivering to one of our customers who is based on the old goods yard at Shifnal between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury. Having unloaded I went into the office to collect the paperwork when I heard a train approaching. Having a casual look through the open doorway I was surprised to see the Royal Train hauled by a silver coloured loco and tailed by one of the Royal Train engines go roaring past towards Shrewsbury. I know that the Queen was in Cardiff that morning opening the new Welsh Assembly building. Had she ventured north afterwards and was the train going to pick her up. Whatever it brightened up my day.

Presumably the "silver coloured" engine was EWS's coperate 67 standing in for the other Royal 67.

Royal Train update.
There I was driving my little lorry up the M5 to join the M6. Whilst trying to dodge the merging traffic I had a quick glance over top Bescot. There was the Royal Train again in the sidings with the Royal engine still on the southern end.

i bet "SHE" was delighted to see you...did she wave?

Royal trains, when steam hauled were usually preceeded by a pilot. In order to safegaurd the old lass, platelayers were staioned at briges and tunnel vents armed with pickaxe handles and the like. This was in the late 50s and early 60s, I was always amused that in our region. West Yorkshire most of the lads if not Irish were of Irish descent.
In power boxs, the royal train lineman had to be given a list of the terminal numbers for the telephone to the signal box. I was on duty on many occasions when the train came through. In the LMS region, if I remember rightly, the lineman from Grange over the Sands usually accompanied the royal train.

I was on Lancaster Station the other week when the Royal Train went through, 67005 on the front and 67006 pushing, it also made my day, it looked really good. Chris.

Don't forget that it isn't always The Queen who is on board the train. I've worked the royal train twice and the first time we had Prince Charles on board, and the second time it was the Duke Of Edinburgh.

I believe that Prince Charles is the Royal that uses the Royal Train the most.

really not a fan of skips, give me the duffs anyday! however just to prove a little useful 67029 (the silver one) is the official stand by loco for the royal train (I think it has a plaque to that effect on it now) just like there was an ews 47 (named windsor castle) standby when they were doing it. its something I think ews insist on having because I don't remember BR having official standbys, perhaps its a way of justifying the locos staying in service beyond there lifespan.

They did. The first time I drove the royal train, I was booked as the second man on a standby engine at Ferryhill near Durham. The train itself was to drive up to Sedgfield and stay there overnight. The job of our loco was to just stand at Ferryhill in case of breakdown. This was in the years before they put a loco on each end of the train.

The reason I became the driver of the train was because earlier on in the day there was a derailment on the Sedgefield branch, so our loco then had to travel from Thornaby to Ferryhill via Darlington which was a route that my driver didn't sign, but I did, so I was made up to driver for the shift and the driver became my assistant.

Then, because the royal train now had to go to Sedgfield via Ferryhill, it needed our loco on the back of it to pull it, facing road, to Sedgefield, and that task was given to me. :D

I must admit to being really annoyed with the people in charge of the train on the day. They were all terrified of the job, and also not very good at it to boot. One incident stands out a mile to me. I was driving facing road to the point where the train was to be stabled overnight in the pitch dark. No headlights in those days either. The inspector gave me clear instructions that when I saw a red handsignal, contarary to all my previous training, I was to stop with the red light alongside my cab window. As I approached the red light however, the inspector suddenly shouted "Stop here" when I was about twenty yards off it. I slowly brought the train to a halt, but he had a dig at me because I didn't bring the train to a halt quickly enough. I gave him a piece of my mind saying that I didn't want to bang the train about and he shouldn't have changed his instructions in the middle of what I was doing. F***ing idiot! :mad: