Today marks 50 years since the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill.  On 30th January 1965, Bulleid Battle of Britain class 34051 had the honour of hauling the deceased Sir Winston Churchill on his last journey from London Waterloo to the famous statesman’s final resting place in Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire.  The locomotive wore disc codes in a simple V for Victory formation (as above) with a train of Pullman carriages and Churchill’s coffin in southern Railway’s parcel van S2464S.  The below video shows some selected original material from British Pathé of the funeral.

The locomotive has been cosmetically restored in Ropley on the Watercress Line (click here for more) and the parcel van (which is the property of the Swanage Railway) has been renovated at Locomotion: Shildon.  Together they form an exhibition at the National Railway Museum, York (click here for more).  The exhibition is set to run from 30th January to 3rd May 2015 and will be well worth catching.

The model world is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary too.  Hornby will be producing a 00 scale model train pack (pictured above) in commemoration of the State Funeral, which was one of many highlights of their recently announced 2015 range reported here on Locoyard.

To read more about Churchill’s Funeral train, a great place to look is www.semgonline.com/misc/win-church_1

Thanks for reading folks.