Funeral procession on a railway train
A
funeral train
carries a
coffin
or coffins (caskets) to a place of interment by
railway
. Funeral trains today are often reserved for leaders, national heroes, or government officials, as part of a
state funeral
, but in the past were sometimes the chief means of transporting coffins and mourners to
graveyards
. Many modern era funeral trains are hauled by operationally restored
steam locomotives
, due to the more romantic image of the steam train against more modern
diesel
or
electric locomotives
, although non-steam powered funeral trains have been used.
History
[
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]
The first funeral train was run by
The London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company
on 7 November 1854. Trains ran once a day from
London Necropolis railway station
to
Brookwood Cemetery
. The train carried not only the bodies of the dead, but the parties of mourners who had come to attend the
funeral
services. Different classes were available for both the living and the dead; a more expensive
first class
ticket would provide a more ornate coffin and greater care of the body during transit. The
London Necropolis Railway
was run on the tracks of the
London and South Western Railway
, who feared that regular passengers would shun locomotives which had previously hauled funeral trains, and therefore purchased an entirely new fleet exclusively for the Necropolis line. The public were initially reserved about the project; one bishop expressed fears that "It may sometimes happen that persons of opposite characters might be carried in the same conveyance. For instance, the body of some profligate spendthrift might be placed in a conveyance with the body of some respectable member of the church, which would shock the feelings of his friends".
[2]
Others felt that the railway industry, which was less than 20 years old and still very much a new technology, was too hectic and loud, ill-befitting the sombre mourning associated with
Christian funeral
services.
The line ran daily – including Sundays – for almost 50 years until 1900, when the Sunday service was stopped and trains began to run on an "as needed basis". The railway remained in operation through the
First World War
and
Second World War
until 16 April 1941, when the London Necropolis station was bombed in the
London Blitz
. The station was never rebuilt and the line fell into disuse.
[3]
When
West Norwood railway station
opened two years later it was sited near to the gates of
South London Metropolitan Cemetery
, founded twenty years earlier; pall-bearers would unload the coffin from its "Funeral special" and simply carry it from the side entrance to the main gates. While this practice is long discontinued, the side gates still remain.
Following the
1947 nationalisation of Britain's railways
, the use of the railway to transport coffins went into steep decline. New operating procedures required that coffins be carried in a separate carriage from other cargo; as regular services to Brookwood station used
electric multiple unit
trains which did not have goods vans, coffins for Brookwood had to be shipped to
Woking
and then carried by road for the last part of the journey, or a special train had to be chartered. The last railway funeral to be carried by British Rail anywhere was that of
Lord Mountbatten
in September 1979,
[4]
and from 28 March 1988 British Rail formally ceased to carry coffins altogether.
[5]
Since Mountbatten, the only railway funeral to be held in the United Kingdom has been that of former
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
General Secretary
Jimmy Knapp
, carried from London to
Kilmarnock
for burial in August 2001.
[6]
Australia
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In
Sydney
,
Australia
, there was a similar service whereby the
Rookwood Cemetery railway line
served the
Rookwood Cemetery
complex. From 1867 until 1948 trains would depart
Mortuary Station
in Sydney City and travel the 15 km (9.3 mi) to Rookwood Cemetery.
[7]
In
Melbourne
funeral services operated to the
Springvale Necropolis
along the dedicated
Spring Vale Cemetery railway
,
[8]
while the
Fawkner Cemetery
was served by trains to
Fawkner station
.
[9]
Finland
[
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In
Helsinki
, a two-kilometre (1.2 mi) long side track ran from the
Malmi
railroad station to the
Malmi cemetery
, which had its own railroad station. Coffins were transported to the cemetery from Harju morgue in
Kallio
. The track was decommissioned in 1954, and has been removed, but the Malmi cemetery station building still exists.
Germany
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]
The Berlin
Friedhofsbahn
(Cemetery Line), opened in 1913, ran from
Berlin-Wannsee station
to
Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery
, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of Central Berlin. It was serviced by both funeral trains with passenger and hearse carriages, as well as regular S-Bahn (suburban rail) services. Funeral train service ended in 1952 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 spelled the end for cross-border S-Bahn services.
State funerals
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Although most funeral services now make use of road-going
hearses
rather than trains, funeral trains remain common for the funerals of
heads of state
.
UK:
Every British monarch that died in the 20th century was conveyed by funeral train:
Queen Victoria
, King
Edward VII
and King
George VI
were both taken to the
Windsor & Eton Central railway station
for the funeral procession. Most
British Prime Ministers
do not receive funeral trains. However, as part of his state funeral,
Winston Churchill
's coffin was carried by a special train hauled by the
Southern Railway
"Battle of Britain" class
locomotive
Winston Churchill
from
Waterloo
to
Handborough
, the closest station both to
St Martin's Church, Bladon
, where Churchill was buried, and to
Blenheim Palace
, with
Class 52 Western
diesel-hydraulic no. D1015
Western Champion
taking the train back to
Paddington
.
Operation London Bridge
planned for the body of
Elizabeth II
to be transported by the
British Royal Train
in the event of her death in Scotland, but instead the body was flown to
RAF Northolt
from
Edinburgh Airport
and transported by
state hearse
to Windsor, making her the first monarch in almost two centuries not to receive a funeral train.
[10]
Russia:
In 1894, the body of
Tsar Alexander III
, was transported by train from
Livadia Palace
in the Crimea, back to St. Petersburg, by way of Moscow. On 23 January 1924, the body of
Vladimir Lenin
was carried by funeral train to
Moscow Paveletskaya railway station
. Later Museum of Lenin Funeral train was established in the rail terminal building.
[11]
This is now the
Museum of the Moscow Railway
.
United States:
The following presidents transported in funeral trains were
Abraham Lincoln
(April 1865),
James Garfield
(1881),
Ulysses S. Grant
(1885),
William McKinley
(1901),
Warren G. Harding
(1923),
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1945),
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1969), and
George H.W. Bush
(2018).
Senator
Robert F. Kennedy
's body was brought by train from New York City to Washington DC following his assassination in 1968, a crowd estimated at one million lined the trackside.
[12]
It was hauled by two
Pennsylvania Railroad
GG1
electrics. On June 5, 2013, Senator
Frank Lautenberg
of New Jersey, an advocate of public transit and
Amtrak
, was transported from
Secaucus Junction
to Washington.
[13]
George H. W. Bush
's funeral train (December 2018) carried him from
Westfield, Texas
to the
George Bush Presidential Library
in
College Station, Texas
, where he was buried.
Union Pacific
selected
4141
and 9096 to transport Bush.
[14]
4141 is an
EMD SD70ACe
diesel locomotive that had been previously painted in a "George Bush 41" scheme in the style of
Air Force One
that had been dedicated to Bush when he and his wife
Barbara
toured the locomotive unit at its unveiling ceremony in 2005.
Canadian
Prime Minister Sir
John Alexander Macdonald
(
Canadian Pacific Railway
),
John Diefenbaker
and
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
(
Via Rail
) had their bodies transported by train.
Founder of the
Republic of Turkey
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
's coffin was transported to the capital
Ankara
by a funeral train from
?zmit
where it was brought to on the battlecruiser Yavuz, ex
SMS Goeben
.
The last times a funeral train was used at a state funeral in
Denmark
were on 24 January 1972, when King
Frederik IX of Denmark
was taken from
Christiansborg Palace Chapel
via
Copenhagen Central Station
to
Roskilde Cathedral
,
[15]
and on 14 November 2000, when his widow
Queen Ingrid
was taken along the same route. Queen Ingrid's funeral, including the train transfer with a steam engine, is documented in a lengthy report by Danish television and available online.
[16]
Romania
:
King Michael I of Romania
was given a state funeral on 16 December 2017.
[17]
At the conclusion of the ceremonies in Bucharest, the coffin was taken from
B?neasa railway station
to
Curtea de Arge?
railway station on board the
royal train
for burial in Curtea de Arge?.
[18]
Philippines
:
Commonwealth
President
Manuel L. Quezon
's coffin was transferred from
Washington Union Station
in
Washington, D.C.
to
San Diego
,
California
using a diesel-hauled train of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
starting on August 2, 1944.
[19]
References
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External links
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