Why Britain's royal train is coming to the end of the line after 180 years of service

In the early 1840s, Queen Victoria became the first British monarch to travel by train in her own dedicated royal saloons, but more than 180 years later, King Charles III looks set to oversee an end to this noble tradition.

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The current British royal train decked out in its rich claret livery, will be decommissioned by March 2027 to "secure best value for public money," according to the Royal Household's latest financial report. Instead, senior royals will make greater use of helicopters and scheduled trains for official visits around the country and to travel between their residences in England and Scotland James Chalmers, Keeper of the Privy Purse the ancient title of the individual responsible for royal finances said the decision to stop the royal train would mean "the fondest of farewells," but added, "In moving forwards we must not be bound by the past." He noted: "The royal train, of course, has been part of national life for many decades, loved and cared for by all those involved." Nowhere will that loss be felt more keenly than in the world's first railway town, Wolverton in Buckinghamshire, where royal trains have been lovingly housed and maintained since the very first vehicle in 1842.

Everybody in Wolverton knows someone who has worked on the royal train and they're bloody proud of it," says Philip Marsh, senior railway manager, historian and author of "The Full Works," a book about the town and its royal train connections.

"This is incredibly sad news," said Andrea Rossi, chief executive of DB Cargo UK, which has managed the train on behalf of the British government for 30 years. "Not just for DB Cargo UK... but for the broader railway family too.