B of B pacific 'Sir Winston Churchill' and the funeral train

 

The project to reunite Sir Winston Churchill's funeral train has been achieved. Staff at Locomotion; the National Railway Museum at Shildon prepared the carriage that carried his coffin for its historic journey. The newly cosmetically restored parcel van is now playing its part in the national events marking 50 years since the his state funeral.
The workshop team at the Co Durham museum moved Southern Railways goods van S2464S from the workshop where it has been undergoing comprehensive restoration work for the previous 3 months to transform it back into its 1965 condition, ready for its journey by road. On loan from the Swanage Railway, which brought it back from the US, it now takes pride of place in a display of the funeral train at the York National Railway Museum. Churchill's Final Journey (30 January -3 May) and will tell the moving story of the state funeral using archive TV news footage and a variety of personal recollections of the steam hauled funeral train.

 

 

Millions of people around the world watched the former prime minister's state funeral on January 30, 1965, in which his coffin was placed into the South Railway parcel van S2464S.

Following his death, the train carriage – which once carried basic goods such as vegetables and newspapers - ended up in Los Angeles before being brought back to the UK in 2007.

 

 

Waterloo station January 1965

 

Top four pictures by Mick Higgins bottom two

Hulton Getty images