[ Train whistle blows ] -The most luxurious and elusive locomotive in the history of the British Isles.

For the last 150 years, the Royal Train has dutifully transported the monarchy in style.

-The Royal Train is part of the spectacle of royalty, the performance of royalty.

-It's a grand entrance, it makes a statement.

It connects with the people.

-But its veiled carriages have remained a mystery to all but a very privileged few.

This is the inside story of an extraordinary palace on wheels.

From its lavish past as the Royal Express of excess to Her Majesty's mobile home from home that's still chugging away today.

-To be told, "Tonight, you're going to drive the Royal Train."

Absolutely fantastic.

-Welcome to the most exclusive commute in the world.

-It simply has to be the most romantic train in Britain and the best way to travel, if you can.

-All aboard the Royal Train.

[ Train whistle blows ] ♪♪ [ Train whistle blows ] ♪♪ -The grand railways of Britain are the oldest in the world.

And since the mid-1800s, the most secretive of trains has rode its tracks.

♪♪ From Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth, this regal residence of the railroads has always been the royals' favorite way to travel.

But it remains an enigma.

Press and public are strictly off limits, and an invitation on board is so exclusive, that even Prince Harry is still waiting for his.

-The Royal Train is actually only for the four most senior members of the royal family.

So that, at the moment is the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, and Camilla The Duchess of Cornwall.

-The mistake about the Royal Train, comes from the fact that nobody really ever gets near it.

You can't look into it when it goes past 'cause the curtains are always drawn.

What's in it?

Is it luxury?

Is it Spartan?

And there are very few people that have been on it, and that's why it's got that mystique.

-With the Royal Train making just half a dozen or so journeys a year, when its distinctive royal claret carriages roll into view, they can cause quite a stir.

-The train journey, the arrival, the moment the Queen steps out and onto the red carpet, it's incredibly important.

♪♪ -For members of the public that see the Royal Train, it is perhaps the closest they will ever get to the monarch, and it gives them a connection to the royal family.

♪♪ -And I think in a way, people do not want a bicycling monarchy.

They want something a bit more flamboyant and grander, with more pomp and circumstance.

-You want them turning up in a gleaming, claret-clad, steam-emanating, very smart royal locomotive that screams, "You are very special, we are very special, and we are gracing you with our presence, and we're all gonna have a jolly nice time.

-Making a grand entrance is something of a family tradition.

♪♪ Queen Victoria was never one to miss a big occasion.

Britain's grand new stations would need to be prepared for an arrival, fit for... well, the Queen.

-Queen Victoria's first journey was when she was just 23.

It was 1842, and Albert loved trains, and Albert really encouraged Victoria to take the train.

So what they did was, they took a train journey from Slough to Paddington.

-The Queen, like many Victorians, was rather suspicious of steam engines and the speeds a train could reach with this new technology.

It was widely believed that traveling over 40 miles an hour could drive you insane.

But Victoria put her fears aside and took her first royal train trip.

And if she was going to do it, she'd do it in style.

-They took a horse-drawn carriage to Slough from Windsor Castle, and there they boarded the Royal Saloon.

And it had been decorated in the most Victorian way you can imagine.

It was grandeur, it was opulent, and Victoria thought it was really rather marvelous.

She was completely won over.

That was the beginning of Victoria's great love affair with the Royal Train, one that would persist throughout her entire reign, right up until death.

-Queen Victoria was so smitten by steam-train travel that, by 1869, she commissioned a private set of carriages, designed and decorated to her own unique taste.

-It's more than just a railway carriage.

It's like a National Trust property on wheels.

♪♪ Everything that you see in here, from the woodwork, to the gilt, to the silks is original.

It's a national treasure.

-No expense was spared in making her train carriages as decadent as the rooms of her palace.

-What was very important to her and those around her, was that it really was like this palace on wheels.

So you actually forgot you were in a train.

-Victoria decorated her saloon in her own understated way.

Luxurious 23-karat-gold paint was used inside, along with precious silks, satin, and a lot of gold tassel.

-Queen Victoria put £700 of her own money into the design and fitting out of this carriage.

It was very lavish, it was opulent, it was very stylish.

You can see elements of her taste and her style in the colors, in the materials, in the finish.

Everything in here is beautiful.

-Victoria saw no reason why her carriages shouldn't have every luxury available to her at home.

And being sovereign of 54 colonies, she always got her way.

So, when she left her palace for her train, she quite literally took everything but the kitchen sink.

-She took everything that she could from Buckingham Palace -- her furniture, her clothes, her belongings, her jewels, her books, all her favorite servants.

And it was a gigantic operation, not only getting everyone on the Royal Train, but packing the Royal Train, and then eventually getting this rather weighed-down train out of the station.

-In the carriage, she had her attendants and ladies in waiting, and she could call those whenever she wanted.

So you have a button for the attendant there, and you have a button for her dresser there.

This is duplicated at the other end of this table so that the Queen didn't have to get up.

It's also said on occasions that the Queen used the attendant's bell to get the engine driver to stop so that she could admire the views, particularly up in the wilds of Scotland, heading towards Balmoral.

♪♪ -But Victoria didn't like every view from her carriage.

Traveling through the Midlands, she lowered her blinds, appalled at the sight of the grim industrial towns.

And this wasn't the only incident.

-There was one occasion at Newcastle Station in which she very pointedly drew down the blinds because she was very offended because she'd had a big banquet at Newcastle Station, and then the bill had been sent to Buckingham Palace.

And that, to her, was pretty shocking.

So when she went through, she pulled down the blinds and refused to look out.

-But despite some unsavory views, Victoria set about exploring the length and breadth of her country by train, a much easier task by 1900, as 18,680 miles of railway zigzagged across Britain.

-For Victoria, she really felt as if it was her duty to see her people.

And she'd been schooled in that, really, from a very young age.

And the train was a brilliantly effective way of her traveling around the country, and yet retaining much more privacy than she'd ever had in the horse-drawn carriage.

-But her journeys weren't as whistle-stop as they could've been.

Queen Victoria insisted on disembarking to dine and even enforced a strict speed limit.

-The Queen insisted on a traveling speed of 40 miles an hour in the daytime and 30 miles an hour at night.

-She was not permitting the train to go very fast.

She thought it would be bad for her health.

-This didn't just make Victoria's trips unnecessarily long.

When her train was on track, any common traveler had to move aside.

-The Royal Train took precedent over every other train moving.

Whether it was an express train or a parcels train or a coal train or a goods train, everything had to stop to let the Royal Train go through.

-Victorians were great innovators, so the Queen not only traveled in style, she also had all the latest gadgets.

But while she might have held up her subjects on every royal journey, Victoria's train was also a force for good.

Railway engineers used the royal carriages to test-drive some cutting-edge innovations that would revolutionize train travel for everyone.

-In the 1890s, the Royal Train was fitted with electric light.

It was one of those new inventions that everyone said, you know, the royal family must have because it was thought, you know, the Queen would endorse this new power.

You can also see there's these lovely lampshades that would've gone round, made out of silk, which you could have come and just dimmed the light a little bit there.

Beautiful.

-And the mod cons didn't end there.

The Queen's carriage was also one of the first to have its own -- [ clears throat ] -- throne room.

-The royal toilet, of course, reflects every other part of the train.

It's opulent, it's stylish, it's good-quality materials.

And again, it's the Queen endorsing new technology.

"Toilets on trains is new ideas, and the Queen's got one."

-But although more than happy to adopt these new inventions in principle, in practice, it was a different story.

-I'm afraid to say that she wouldn't use it.

She refused to use it.

Instead, she made the train stop every two hours or so, so she could use a lavatory on the earth.

♪♪ -But all this was just the beginning for the royal residence on the tracks.

For the generations to follow, the family train would need to evolve with the times.

From becoming an armored-plated palace on wheels in a time of war... -It was officially a state secret until 1946.

Nobody knew it existed.

-...to its makeover as a very private home from home for the Queen.

-They sit down, put their feet up, kick their shoes off, have a cup of tea, and stroke the corgis, they're away from the world.

-We lift the curtain on a royal train that's still making headlines today.

♪♪ Since the reign of Queen Victoria, the well-upholstered carriages and luxurious locomotives of the Royal Train have ferried members of the royal family the length and breadth of the country.

But it's had to change with the times.

Under the watch of the Queen's grandfather, George V, the Royal Train became a much more utilitarian beast.

-George V had used the train quite a lot in the First World War.

He'd felt that during the times of pervasion, they could not ask for hotels or sleeping accommodation, so they'd sleep on the train, and it became a key part of his role as king.

-When his son and successor, George VI, inherited the family train, it was once again set to play a vital role in wartime.

Having served in the British Navy during the Great War, the King understood just how important it was for the monarchy to be visible during difficult times.

-George VI saw it as this really key role of his to visit the war-torn country, to see places that had been bombed.

He really felt that this was incredibly important.

And the train was the best way of getting around.

The government were dubious because they felt he was a moving target.

But the King was adamant.

-And this war wasn't just fought in battlefields on the other side of the Channel.

The conflict was also being played out in Britain's skies.

With its white roof and flimsy wooden carriages, the Royal Train was the perfect target for the Luftwaffe's bombs.

And its thin walls left the royal family at huge risk from even glancing collateral damage.

♪♪ -If there was an air raid threat at the beginning of World War II, they would shelter the train in tunnels if there were royals on the train, and that would be for protection.

But, of course, there wasn't always a convenient tunnel, and that's why they decided to build the armor-plated one.

-So the Royal Train evolved once again.

George's brand-new carriages would, at the time, become the most advanced in the world.

Almost 80 years on, they are the star attraction at the National Railway Museum in York.

-It's often described as the "Armored Car."

At 56 tons, one of the heaviest passenger vehicles ever to run on Britain's railways.

-Groundbreaking welding techniques allowed the King's carriages to be built out of steel.

They were thought to be bomb-proof.

-It certainly would've stopped cannon fire and machine-gun bullets.

And to add to that, the double-glazed windows were fitted with armor-plated shutters.

-But keeping the royals armored-plated wasn't enough.

-The attempt was made to keep the journeys as secret as possible.

The last thing the government wanted was that spies getting hold of the timetable of the Royal Train, passing it to the Luftwaffe, and it was really incredible, that with all the bombing across the United Kingdom, the Royal Train was not attacked.

-In fact, the biggest secret of all was the train itself.

-It was officially a state secret until 1946.

Nobody knew it existed.

When you see the old newsreels of the king and queen visiting blitzed cities, troops, airfields, dockyards, the chances are they traveled in this train.

This vehicle was crucial to the British war effort.

-In one month alone, King George traveled 2,750 miles on the Royal Train.

But keeping the Royals safe didn't mean that they couldn't travel in style.

-It really is a masterpiece of art-deco design.

The lights, the telephones, the clock.

-Queen Elizabeth, King George's wife, oversaw the renovations on the train, and she had rather a key eye on detail.

-The writing desk is there because when the King wrote his letters, he liked natural light to come in over his left shoulder.

-George and Elizabeth wanted to make this the Royal Train of the future.

-This vehicle is air-conditioned when air conditioning wasn't common in the U.K. at all.

It requires 5,600 weight of ice to make it work.

And you look at the grills and you think, "Well, so what?"

Except it's aluminum, it's wartime.

We need aluminum for Spitfires.

And they insisted that it was for essential war work, and they got it.

-With key decisions of the war decided on board the train, every room needed to be secure.

-This is the Queen Mother's bathroom.

If you look over here, we have a cupboard.

Glass cupboard with a door on here.

We are told that that's where you put your top secret documents.

If you need to come to the bathroom when you've got the plans for D-Day with you, you can't just leave them anywhere, you pop them in there.

-This, one of the first bathtubs ever to be fitted on a train in the U.K., also holds another secret.

From 1940, as part of wartime rationing, the public were told to draw red lines on their tubs.

This was to stop the baths filling too high to save the fuel needed to heat the water.

Until recently, it was thought the Royals were at one with their people.

But it may not have been for quite the same reason.

-There's a red line in the bath, and we had a visit from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales a couple of years ago, and he said, "You can forget all the stories about it being a wartime economy measure."

He said, "Just think logically.

You're in the bath full to the top, traveling at 70 miles an hour and the train goes around a bend.

Where does the water go?"

He says, "That's why you don't fill the bath above the red line."

-And papers deep in the basement of the museum reveal one last secret of the wartime train.

-We also have copious correspondence in our archives, between the palace and the railway company about the exact position of the toilet-roll holder.

Nothing was left to chance.

♪♪ -30 years on, the secret world inside the famous claret carriages was set to change once again.

The train, like our monarchy, was evolving.

So if you're expecting Buckingham Palace on wheels, well, you may be disappointed.

Gone is the excess of Victoria, and the mod cons of King George.

The distinctly understated new Royal Train was presented to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to mark her Silver Jubilee tour in 1977.

-The great thing about the Royal Train is, of course, that you think it's going to be this amazing gilt-paneled, very regal, decorated interior, Virgin trains on acid, really.

But it's not at all.

♪♪ -Everyone presumes that the Royal Train is extremely luxurious, and it's a bit like the Orient Express.

But in practice, it's more functional than flamboyant.

-And yet it is much loved.

The train's nine coaches may not be lavish, but they provide a practical and simple comfort for the royals to carry out their duties on the move.

-That's a good idea.

I'm sure it's very worthy.

-You can see the Royal Train is made up of bedrooms, bathrooms, lounge, dining areas.

-The Queen, Prince Philip, and Prince Charles, all had their say in the final points of the carriages' design.

But with a modest refit budget of £320,000, it's more Network Rail than Orient Express.

-The Queen has her own personal compartment.

She has her own bed.

There aren't any double beds on the Royal Train.

It's just three foot, I'm told, across, decorated with Scottish landscape scenes on the wall.

-But when it came to the royal bathroom, the Queen finally allowed herself a little lap of luxury.

But unlike her mother -- who had a red line placed to stop spillage of water -- the Queen has her own protocol in place, to make sure she can enjoy a full tub without a mess.

-It is said that she quite likes to have a regular bath.

And when that happens, the train driver is instructed to stop in a siding, so that waters don't slosh over the royal tub.

-And husband Philip also had his personal foibles attended to.

-His Royal Highness Prince Philip has a shaving mirror mounted next to his toilet.

-So you can sit on the toilet and look in the mirror and shave.

And that was one of the little design details that wasn't incorporated in the original build.

♪♪ -It's a train designed to make sure the family are ready for their next royal appointment, as efficiently as possible.

And just as King George was determined not to let war stand in the way of reaching his people, the Royal Train has once again had to adapt to the times to keep the family safe on the move.

-There was a threat of violence from the IRA.

[ Explosion ] So when the Royal Train was refitted in the mid '80s at the cost of several million pounds, part of the specification for the new refit was that it should be able to withhold an attack from a rocket, from machine-gun fire, and from bombs.

-For extra security, the details of each journey are highly classified, and even the identity of the royal planning to travel is kept secret from staff working on board.

-Now, I never knew who was on the train.

I used to get the papers and everything, say, "Go to Euston, pick it up empty."

So I could never say to my wife or any of me family, "I'm going out with the Queen today."

I couldn't do that!

I never knew who was on it, and I didn't want to know.

♪♪ -It is a means of moving people in a secure way around the country.

Whether it is on a two-day visit or a one-day visit, it's a secure operation.

♪♪ -For five generations, the Royal Train has transported our monarchy to royal engagements and country estates.

But it's also performed a more poignant task.

-The Royal Train has played an important part in funeral arrangements.

The reason for that, is that several royals have died not in Buckingham Palace but in their country retreat.

♪♪ George V and George VI both died in Sandringham.

But the most difficult episode was when Queen Victoria died on the Isle of Wight at her retreat at Osborne House.

-Victoria's first ever journey on the train, when she was just 23, she went from Slough near Windsor to Paddington and fell in love with the train.

And then, her final journey on the train was the one that was taking her to Windsor, to be buried in the Royal Mausoleum.

And that, I think, is an incredible symmetry.

♪♪ -When George VI died and he had, obviously, a state funeral, the tracks were lined four, five, six people deep, all wanting to see the Royal Train traveling very slowly with the monarch's body on board.

They wanted to pay their respects at the passing of the king.

[ Bell tolls ] -45 years later, in September 1997, the nation united to mourn the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

And on the day of her funeral, as the country and the world looked on, the Royal Train played a vital role.

-One of our duties was to take the mourners from the Spencer family and the Prince of Wales and the Princes to Long Buckby Station for the interment at Althorp.

As the train run into Northampton over the M1 Motorway, we looked out the windows and the hearse carrying the mortal remains of the Princess was traveling on the motorway just below us.

I found that quite a poignant moment.

♪♪ -For those who have served on the Royal Train, it has offered a rare insight into the Windsors at close quarters.

-And the door opens and Her Majesty stands there in her nightdress.

-We get a glimpse at the private life of the family behind those carriage doors.

-I said, "Do you know who that was, Sidney?"

He said, "No."

I said, "It was Lady Diana."

"It wasn't.

It wasn't."

♪♪ -Traveling by Royal Train is seen as a huge privilege.

From private secretary to police bodyguard, when Queen Elizabeth travels in the most exclusive of carriages, she is supported by a tight-knit team with years of loyal service.

-The Royal Train is the flagship of the fleet.

It looks like another train.

But once you're through the doors, the similarity disappears.

It's got to be the best train to work on.

♪♪ -Our friendly name for it was the "Shining Express."

It was like being in the Army or the RAF or the Navy.

It was a team.

-Traveling on the Royal Train's rather special.

I've done it twice -- once with the Prince of Wales and the other time with the Queen.

It's a lovely way of traveling.

And then you go along the corridor, and you sit down in the dining room, and you have breakfast with the principal.

And it's terrific.

-It simply has to be the most romantic train in Britain and the best way to travel, if you can.

♪♪ -Limitations are rare and for good reason.

This is the Queen's mobile home from home.

She has said that it is one of the few places left on earth where she can relax in total privacy.

-Well, do we think that this is a good idea?

We don't know what it's about.

-No.

-Crucially, the staff on the train know what the royal passengers require, so the moment the royals get onto that train, the doors shut, they sit down, put their feet up, kick their shoes off, have a cup of tea, and stroke the corgis.

They're away from the world.

It's a traveling home for them.

-The art of delivering the ultimate in legal service for this royal residence on the move takes experience and perfect timing.

-One of the finer skills of being a member of the Royal Train staff, is the art of invisibility.

Although we are unintrusive and in the background, it is important to know the schedules of the principals, such as what time they're going to bed, what time they're going for breakfast, what time they're having a bath, what time they're going for dinner.

That allows us access to their areas, and other areas on the train, to maintain any repairs or maintaining the presentation.

-But with a family and staff living and working across nine small carriages, it's not always possible to keep a discreet distance.

-We were taking Her Majesty and His Royal Highness to Scotland for their summer holidays at Balmoral.

I had a phone call to say that all the communication systems had gone down, and it had to be fixed.

So I found out that Her Majesty had retired.

I opened the door into the lounge, and there were nine corgis in the lounge.

So I closed the door, and thought...

I didn't know what to do.

And the door opens, and Her Majesty stands there in her nightdress.

He stands back, quite shocked.

I stood back, quite shocked.

And he said, "I've just come to check on the corgis before I retired."

And he settled them down, and I bid Her Majesty good night.

I had to sit down for a few minutes, I have to say, because I was no fit state to start dealing with electricity.

[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -Dining on the train is a little different from your average buffet car.

Edward VIII insisted on eating food that had been shot, caught, or trapped on his own estates, while Queen Victoria believed it was unnatural and harmful to the digestion to eat while on the move.

For our Queen, meals are prepared by a full kitchen staff, and are cooked to the standard expected in the Royal Palaces.

-There's a huge number of royal chefs, and a number of them will be borrowed by the Royal Train when the Queen has to make a visit.

And they will produce food just as good as any of that cooked in Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace.

-The chef and the steward would try to ensure that, because of their vast experience and long service, they'd effectively know what the Royal Family would require.

So most things were there.

Anything else that was required would be fetched from Tescos.

♪♪ -It shows you the way you can drive.

-It does, that's right.

-Prince Charles likes to dine with guests on board the train.

-...is an awareness raisable?

-In the 12-seater dining car, staff must have his monogrammed china and crystalware ready for any occasion.

And when passing through Wales, his Royal Highness insists that the chef uses local produce.

But not all the family are quite so demanding.

♪♪ The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh enjoy a traditional afternoon tea, accompanied by Her Royal Highness's favorite aperitif, one-third gin, two-thirds Dubonnet, served on ice.

♪♪ And when the Queen Mother entertained on board, she would often have her favorite treat to hand.

-She had this big box of chocolates.

She loved chocolates, the Queen Mum.

And she would ask me, "Mr. Pelham Turner, would you like a chocolate?"

And, "Yes, ma'am, I'd love a chocolate."

And then she would hand you a chocolate.

She used to give you all hard centers, you know, because she couldn't eat the hard centers anymore, and she kept the soft centers for herself.

That's was the Queen Mother for you.

♪♪ -Whilst most meals are planned well in advance, when you work for the Royals, you've got to keep on your toes.

-I've only seen the Chief Steward flummoxed once.

And that was when a member of the Royal Family, after being asked what they would prefer for breakfast, said that they would like yogurt.

It was established that there was no yogurt on board.

So a hasty phone call was made via the British Transport Police, to officers in Carlisle, who scoured the corner shops and filled a carrier bag up with various yogurts, which were delivered as we passed through Carlisle Station.

Yogurt is served.

[ Laughs ] -It's not just the menu that is meticulously planned.

Planning for use of the train transpires a few months in advance so that all the details from the train's engine to the soup spoon can be inspected and attended to accordingly.

Her time on the tracks also needs to be carefully scheduled.

When Queen Victoria was on the move, the rail network around her ground to a halt.

But over 100 years later, Queen Elizabeth takes a very different approach.

-Using the Royal Train on mainline is not the same as a motorcade.

It is, to all intents and purposes a regular service, but it's a regular service working in irregular hours.

It will drop the Queen off, and it'll move off, so there's no disruption whatsoever.

It's just another train on the line.

However, this is not a train you'd like to be caught behind.

Whilst the fastest train in Britain might have a top speed of 200 miles per hour, the Queen's carriage can trundle along at a third of that pace.

In fact, it travels so slowly that it's one of the few trains in the country to have its own on-board signaling inspector, a position Bill Sankey held for nearly 30 years.

-Me job there was to facilitate a 70-mile-an-hour train running amongst 100-mile-an-hour trains.

We had to go on different lines and put them round us, 'cause they were the people that were paying.

They had to get where they were going.

-It may have been a serious job, but that doesn't mean Bill couldn't have fun.

And the royals would sometimes join in.

♪♪ -On the Royal Train, I liaised with the signalers.

On one journey, I contacted the signalman, my mate Sidney.

Princess Diana, she came down into my office, and I said, "Mum, would you like to do me a favor tonight?"

She said, "Well, what -- if I can."

And I said to her, "Would you mind reading this out to Sidney?"

And she did.

I said, "Did you get that Sidney?"

"Yeah."

So it's a fortnight later, we're in this public house in Warrington.

I said, "Do you know who that was, Sidney?"

He said, "No."

I said, "It was Lady Diana."

"It wasn't."

"It wasn't."

He goes, "Bugger off!"

♪♪ -But behind the japes, Bill and the team knew that they were tasked with getting their train from A to B, exactly as planned.

-When any part of Royal travel happens, it's done to the second.

-The operating staff pride their selves in an arrival within plus or minus 15 seconds of the given time.

-Often packing in multiple appearances every day, Royal schedules have to be planned with military precision.

And causing any delay is not the done thing, something royal photographer Ian Pelham Turner knew all too well when he hit a problem during one royal engagement.

-I'd been assigned one day to photograph the royal family boarding the train to go to Ascot.

Everything was going extremely well.

The Queen, Prince Philip, Charles, Anne.

And then, the Queen Mother turned up, and that's when this thing went terribly, terribly wrong.

The problem was was that the flash didn't fire on the camera.

She looks at the look terror on my face, I was panicking, to say the least.

So my heart was beating away, the Queen was banging on the window, and I could feel all this pressure upon me.

And then there was a hole in the roof of Waterloo Station, and this shaft of light came down and hit the red carpet.

And she walks into the spotlight, I take her photograph.

She's smart, and she had that cheeky smile on her face, and she winked at me and walked on the train.

I think I'm the only photographer ever to hold up the Royal Train.

That's my claim to fame.

-The lion's share, of the responsibility for keeping the royal journey on track falls on the shoulders of the royal driver, a tremendous responsibility that comes with one of the most sought-after positions on the railway network.

Chosen from a handpicked pool of 150 experienced drivers, these are the crème de la crème of the rail industry.

-They always picked a senior driver, and it was more or less a real credit for him to be driving the Royal Train.

Imagine, he's been a driver at Edge Hill, Liverpool, Euston.

And to be told, "Tonight, you're gonna drive the Royal Train."

Absolutely fantastic!

-In fact, it's a point of honor with Royal Train drivers that their starts and stops are so smooth, nobody notices.

But it takes some skill.

-Prince Charles, as a boy, was fascinated by the Royal Train and by how the train driver was so precise to line up quite brilliantly the Queen's door with the red carpet.

I mean, that is precision.

-I can tell you from driving trains, it is a hell of a skill.

-The Duke of Edinburgh specifically would find that quite hilarious, "Are we gonna hit the mark?"

-For a train driver, stopping exactly in the right spot is one of the more challenging things that we're asked to do.

♪♪ [ Train whistle blowing ] -That's the tell the signalman we're clear of the signal.

-With a margin of error of just 6 inches, bringing the Queen's carriage door to a perfect stop right in front of the red carpet requires a very steady hand... -Right, we're going in.

[ Train whistle blows ] -...as driver Roland Law hopes to demonstrate.

-We're just rolling into the station now gently.

I'll be not going too fast so that I can spot the position that should put the coach right beside the red carpet.

So just a bit of steam to get her going, and then we'll coast into the platform.

And I'll start using this brake here.

Easy to stop within a foot.

To stop within an inch is quite a lot more difficult.

-Inevitably, with this level of precision parking, things don't always go to plan.

-There was one occasion we were taking the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for a morning service in Bristol.

And something had gone wrong with the planning, and as we pulled into Bristol Temple Meads, I opened the doors, and I dropped the step.

And the Queen, Her Majesty came through, and she said, "Where's Lord Lieutenant?"

I said, "Well, actually, Your Majesty, they were at the wrong end of the platform, and he's currently running down the platform with his ceremonial just sort of between his legs."

[ Laughs ] And Her Majesty and the Royal Consort sort of fell about in fits of laughter.

One of a few instances where we didn't get it quite right.

[ Air hissing quitely ] ♪♪ [ Air hissing loudly ] -And we should be there.

How did we go?

Did we get there?

Hit he mark.

Excellent!

-But whilst the team behind our Royal Train may still know how to hit the mark, could it be the end of the line for the most famous locomotive in Britain?

-The Royal Train is a throwback to a bygone era.

It's the last vestige of imperial power.

-Or have the next generation of royals already fallen under its spell?

-It was the Queen saying, "Welcome to the family."

[ Cheers and applause ] -After losing the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1997... ♪♪ ...the palace have strongly asserted that Britain's most famous locomotive needs to continue as an integral fixture of regal life.

♪♪ After 150 years in service to five generations of royals, it still makes quite an entrance.

-The Royal Train is part of the spectacle of royalty, the performance of royalty.

-The royal family do not have that much formal power.

What they do have is a visual impact.

They're there for show.

It's a grand entrance, it makes a statement, it connects with the people.

-But will the family train be as beloved by the next generation of royals?

It looks as if the Queen may be doing her beset to keep it on track and share its many charms.

-Well, Meghan's trip on the train last year was to accompany the Queen.

The Queen was going to Cheshire, and the Queen asked Meghan to accompany her, and you don't say no to the Queen.

[ Cheering, camera shutters clicking ] -I think Meghan's first royal engagement with the Queen was a very important sign of her inclusion and acceptance.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Now, when the Royal Train chugged into Runcorn Station, there to greet the royal party was a platform full of school kids all waving Union Jacks, there was a brass band, there was a Lord Lieutenant done up in his finery.

It all made wonderful royal theater.

-It was the Queen saying, "Welcome to the family," in the same way she did with the Duchess of Cambridge.

-Now, without the Royal Train, without this theater prop, this stage prop, it wouldn't have made quite the same impact.

[ Children cheering ] -Nevertheless, putting on such an impressive royal performance does not come cheap.

Meghan's day trip with the Queen cost a staggering £29,714.

-Royal travel is expensive.

It costs millions of pounds every year, if you look at all the members of the royal family.

-It is four times more expensive than going by air.

It is £52 per mile, as opposed to £12 per mile, so it is really a big-ticket item.

-And it's paid for by the U.K. taxpayer.

It comes out of the Sovereign Grant.

So I think it's right that a spotlight is shone upon exactly how much all this costs.

I think we have to know that we're getting value for money.

-But not every train journey taken by the Queen, has the same pageantry and price tag as the Royal Train.

-The Queen, for example, we use Thameslink to go up to King's Lynn when she goes to Sandringham for Christmas and New Year.

-She always goes from Kings Cross to King's Lynn, and she always buys her, I think, £45 first-class rail travel ticket, one-way.

'Cause, of course, she can't use the return within a month, 'cause she's not coming back until February.

-It'll be a regular train, they'll be other people on it.

The portion that she's in will be cleared for security purposes.

But the rest of the train will carry passengers, and she'll get off the other end like anybody else gets off the other end.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] ♪♪ -In a world where steam no longer curls over train platforms, and our railway network has been overstuffed with commuters, the Royal Train can still transport us to a better era of travel.

-The Royal Train is a throwback to a bygone era.

It's the last vestige, really, I kind of think, of imperial power, not just royal power.

The ability to click your fingers and have a whole train at your disposal.

-There are those who say, "Well, it's overpriced, it's expensive, it's gone past its sell-by date in the 21st century."

It's still functional.

People still travel by train.

There's no reason why the royals shouldn't, either.

-When the Royal Train stops running -- 'cause it will do at some stage -- it will be the end of a bit of social history, railway history, royal history, all those things rolled into one.

♪♪ -But for now, for those who know her best, there is life in the old girl yet.

♪♪ -To order this program on DVD, visit ShopPBS or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪ ♪♪