Churchills train returns from US scrap heap to Britain

From British Prime Minister Winston Churchill need not turn in his grave anymore over the fate of a cream and red carriage train that carried him to his final resting place in January 1965.

London, Oct.5 : From British Prime Minister Winston Churchill need not turn in his grave anymore over the fate of a cream and red carriage train that carried him to his final resting place in January 1965.

The train has returned the 8,000 miles to Britain after being saved from a scrap heap by civic leaders in Los Angeles.

According to the Daily Mail, the train had until recently been on show as part of a mock English railway station on a resort in LA, but interest waned and it ended up being left to rot. But after pressure from the UK its owners agreed to donate the carriage to the British people.

They paid the vast bulk of the 35,000-pound cost of shipping it home on a six-week journey via the Panama Canal to Southampton docks in Hampshire. The train is now back in the UK

The Swanage Railway Trust, which negotiated van number S2464S' return to Britain, partly paid for the trip.

The historic van was built in 1931 and was painted in Pullman livery in 1962. It was stored until Sir Winston's death in 1965 when it formed part of the train which carried his coffin on its final journey to Bladon, near Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, after his state funeral.

The steam locomotive that bore Sir Winston's name hauled the funeral train. he railway carriage will now be taken to East Somerset Railway in Cranmore for restoration before it goes on display in around a year's time at Swanage Railway in Dorset.

Swanage Railway volunteers are now faced with raising £20,000 to pay for the van's full restoration.

ANI