RAILWAY MUSEUM

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 124, 18 February 1933, Page 12

RAILWAY MUSEUM

Exhibits in York QUEEN VICTORIA’S SALOON In spite of their hard times and their struggle with the road, the railway companies are doing splendid work in the preservation of the records of their past. The Railway Museum at York, which contains many famous locomotives from the time of the “Rocket” onwards, is well worth visiting by anyone who hap pens to be near it. Interesting old locomotives and early carriages are also preserved at stations in different parts of the country. " s Queen Victoria’s railway, saloon, which has not been used since she died, has now been taken to the railway works in Derby, and is worth seeing. When it was built in 1869 it was the latest thing in comfort and luxury. Its sleeping compartment is upholstered with crimson figured chintz, and the day compartment with royal blue silk. It originally consisted of two saloons of thirty feet, but objection was taken to the gangway which joined them, and they were joined to form the present coach.

Queen Victoria used the coach regularly for her journeys between Windsor, Gosport, Ballater, and Balmoral. When electric light was fitted she still insisted on having oil lamps as well. Owing, it is believed, to an accident which occnrerd in the early days of railways, she objected to travelling too fast. If the train appeared to be going above a certain rate, she had it slowed down.