King & Queen to Durham (17/04): should such journeys be made by train?

[AndrewE]

I'm sure that HM KC III will use The Train whenever it makes sense to do so. He has always been very environmentally aware, in many places the train is much easier to make secure for an overnight stop than any city-centre hotel and it's often a good (maybe the most) reliable and secure way to arrive a.m. in a city centre without stitching up the traffic for the locals.

 

[Mikey C]

I have visions of King Charles getting off an LNER Azuma at Durham...

"These seats are really quite...appalling."

 

[Helvellyn]

Their Majesties were in Italy last week for a State Visit, which coincided with their twentieth wedding anniversary. I believe they then went to Balmoral to rest (The King is still undergoing cancer treatment) so I suspect they flew down from Scotland and were then heading elsewhere (Sandringham?) for Easter, so using the train probably didn't make sense.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

The Royal Train gets absolute priority over everything else so the usual pathing concerns for operation of loco hauled charters don’t apply, they’ll hold up the regular passenger services for it if they have to.

Note that my use of the word "priority" was in reference to the decision making process around spending the royal travel budget and not in any operational sense, hence my mention of operating costs. Sorry if that was not clear.

 

[Meerkat]

I'm sure that HM KC III will use The Train whenever it makes sense to do so. He has always been very environmentally aware, in many places the train is much easier to make secure for an overnight stop than any city-centre hotel and it's often a good (maybe the most) reliable and secure way to arrive a.m. in a city centre without stitching up the traffic for the locals.

How green is the Royal Train with all that empty mileage and presumably a loco or generator chugging away all night? Also might involve more road travel (by multiple vehicles) from the staion than dropping in to the venue by helicopter.