Goodbye to Victoria the Last Queen Empress: The Story of Queen Victoria’s Funeral Train

‘All day long the Angel of Death has been hovering over Osborne House. One could almost hear the beating of the wings, but at a quarter past six those wings were folded and the Queen was at rest’. These words were written by the Special Court correspondent of The Times on 22nd January, 1901, the day Queen Victoria died. Naturally all British newspapers carried this as their main story, but what was surprising was the widespread coverage by newspapers from other countries. For example, the New York Tribune featured the story on the whole of its front page with pictures of the late Queen and new King Edward over the legend ‘The Queen is dead. Long Live the King’. It went on to describe the nation’s grief and sorrow, the massive wave of sympathy which was sweeping the country, the tributes from not only all over Europe but from countries and nations worldwide and here, at home in Britain, the hasty recall of both the Houses of Parliament to the Palace of Westminster. Straightaway plans began to be laid for one of the most unusual and remarkable railway journeys in history.Three different locomotives from three different railway companies hauled the train carrying the body of the late Queen from the Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport to London Victoria, and then from Paddington to Windsor. Because of the number of crowned heads and other Royal and important personages on the train along with all the security implications, the authorities decided that no photographers would be allowed access to any part of the route. The whole length of all the lines the Royal Train traversed was patrolled by specially delegated railway employees, the result of this was that any photographs of the Royal Funeral train are extremely rare.