SALUBRIOUS SURVIVORS

Several royal carriages survive and some are even still in use. The table below details where the other notable royal carriages can be seen. One of the Great Western Railway’s Jubilee Saloons also survives at STEAM in Swindon. The saloon was withdrawn in 1925, passing into private ownership in the 1930s where it started a new life in Aberporth as a holiday home. By the 1980s the carriage was in a sad state of disrepair and may have been lost forever but for the intervention of Madame Tussauds, which rescued it for use in its Royalty and Empire exhibition at Windsor, alongside replica engine The Queen, which still resides at Windsor station. Once upholstered in fine corded silk, with a hand-painted ceiling and thick Axminster carpet, only the wood panelling survives to give a hint of the elegance that once was. Another that managed to escape passenger (and holiday home) duty was the George VI carriage mentioned in the main text. It was saved for posterity after being withdrawn in 1977 and presented to the NRM. After spending many years on display at the Glasgow Museum of Transport it was gifted to the Severn Valley Railway in 2007, arriving at The Engine House in Highley in 2010. The Engine House offers guided interior tours, though for conservation reasons no more than four people are permitted at any one time. The original carpet is gone, but the upholstery is authentic and is no longer for sitting on. A wealth of history is preserved for posterity. The carriage boasts not one but three telephones; a red phone at the King’s desk allowed him to communicate with the Queen in the adjacent carriage direct from the King’s saloon, then two further telephones are housed in the vestibule, one for internal communication (for staff) and one for external. By sending a request at a station a GPO employee would be dispatched to run the necessary connecting equipment from a designated telegraph pole to the carriage to facilitate external calls. In wartime, when communication was key, the ability to contact the Prime Minister or other august and powerful personages without leaving the carriage would have been a vital advantage. Should you visit this carriage, look out for the small, unusual feature in the bathroom. Barely jutting out from the wall is a glass-fronted cabinet that until recently was a total mystery, even to the Palace themselves, until the cabinet maker himself happened to walk into The Engine House. During the war, King George VI carried a folder with him containing classified information that was never to be let out of his sight, not even during his ablutions! The cabinet was built to allow the folder to remain in sight while he was using the bathroom.