Winston Churchill funeral car

[John Ashworth]

Churchill's funeral train being returned by club
By Jennifer McLain Staff Writer

INDUSTRY - The railcar that carried the body of late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill will return home after nearly 30 years at the Industry Hills Golf Club.

The 50,000-pound funeral railroad coach was purchased in 1965 by former Industry Councilman Darius Johnson for $980 while he and Majestic Realty CEO Edward Roski Jr. were in England.

"The railcar was going to be auctioned off basically for scrap, so we ended up purchasing it," Roski said.

It was shipped to Long Beach and remained in storage until 1979, where it went on display at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Course at the Industry Hills Golf Club. The golf club was a partnership between the city of Industry and Majestic Realty.

Now, as part of a restoration effort led by a British nonprofit organization, the Swanage Railway Trust, the funeral car will return back to its homeland.

"It's come full circle," Roski said. "But if we didn't purchase it, I don't know if it would have survived until today."

The coach, which carried Churchill's body on Jan. 30, 1965, will leave Tuesday to the Port of Long Beach, and then will depart Aug. 21 to England.

Representatives from the Swanage Railway Trust originally said they would pay to ship it. But their fundraising efforts failed, and instead the city of Industry said they would take care of the cost.

"Even though we paid for it, it does belong in its mother country," Industry Mayor Dave Perez said. "We all agreed it deserves to go home."

The city is paying $67,000 to return the coach, including $17,000 to rig it and $50,000 to ship it.

The Swanage Railway Trust has been trying to get the coach back to England for nearly one year. It will be restored to running order for use on the Swanage Railway, a six mile-long heritage railway in Dorset, England.

It was reported in 1965 that the wooden coach served as a baggage car for the London Great Western Railway before it was taken over by British Railways. In 1940, the coach was earmarked for destruction, but was spared by Churchill, who was then prime minister.

The car was preserved because it was used to carry the body of British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed by the Germans as a spy during World War I, according to newspaper reports in 1965.

Since then, the coach was preserved at the golf course and was used to create an English theme for decoration at the St. Andrew's restaurant.

At one point, the train attracted many English visitors, Roski said. Eventually, however, interest waned.

"I don't think it was a destination point, to be quite honest," Perez said. "But it was part of the theme of the golf course."

jennifer.mclain@sgvn.com
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_6575422

A comment on the uk.railway newsgroup adds an interesting snippet: "It had been repainted in Pullman livery in 1963, then kept hidden away in Stewarts Lane shed under strict instructions that it was not to be used under any circumstances whatsoever until authorised - neither BR nor Pullman staff were told its intended use."

The special funeral train was hauled by Bulleid "Battle of Britain" class pacific no 34051, named Winston Churchill. The Southern e-group states, "Although the funeral was not to take place until 30 January 1965, the train's locomotive, Salisbury-shedded 34051 Winston Churchill, was moved to Nine Elms on 25 January to be prepared for the day. As a precaution, 34064 Fighter Command was also moved to Nine Elms to be prepared as the stand-by engine. On the day in question she was sent to Staines, though fortunately there was no need to fall back on this precaution. The train was formed with a bogie van to carry the coffin and five Pullman cars, brake car Nº208, cars Carina, Lydia and Perseus and brake car Isle of Thanet. The bogie van was PMV NºS2464S, which was specially painted in Pullman colours for the journey, and was marshalled as the second vehicle in the train. The driver for the journey was 61 year old AW Hurley who was a veteran of Royal Train Duties and had previously fired a war-time train carrying Winston Churchill." ( http://www.semg.org.uk/misc/win-church_1.html )

The loco still exists in preservation, and another comment on uk.railway suggests, "It'd be interesting to reunite it [the coach] with 34051 at some point - perhaps the 50th anniversary of Churchill's death in 2015?"

FOTR had the privilege of hosting a UK rail enthusiast who owns another vehicle used in Churchill's funeral train at our "shed experience" during the Geoff Cooke Tour in July 2007.

I remember watching the funeral and the train on television back in 1965.

[John Ashworth]

A few further responses on the uk.railway newsgroup:

- That stuff about the van carrying Edith Cavell's body and being preserved on Churchill's instructions is gibberish, isn't it? The "London Great Western Railway" certainly is.

- I recollect it was a Southern Railway van, possibly built on an underframe recovered from a London and South Western motor coach. I remember the funeral, as it was the day of my tenth birthday - can't say that Churchill was particularily revered in my home town, as he'd sent in the army to stop a riot/strike of railway workers in 1911, but it still made for a somewhat sombre day for a ten year old.

- The journalist was confused. The Edith Cavall [sic] van is at Tenterden.

- Come on guys! LSWR! simple typo.