On a very dull day 50 years ago to-day crowds line the track to pay their last respects to Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, as his funeral train passes en-route from Waterloo station in London to Handborough, Oxfordshire for his final resting place at Bladon near Blenheim Palace where he was born. The train is hauled by Bulleid Battle of Britain class three-cylinder Pacific No 34051 Winston Churchill at that time still in normal service. To-day it will on show, freshly restored, at the Nation Railway Museum at York together with the funeral van No S2464S that was repatriated from the United States in 2007. All five Pullman cars in the train survive but only one, Perseus, is still in main line use with the Belmond VSOE British Pullman train but the stored car Lydia will be at York also.
