Queen of England Takes The Train For The Holidays
Filed under: transport — Luke Warner @ 2:20 pm
December 19th 2009
According to the London papers, few seemed to notice the older woman boarding the 10.45am train from King’s Cross train station yesterday.
But the first-class passenger traveling to Norfolk, who did seem vaguely familiar, was, in fact, the Queen of England, setting off on her Christmas break to Sandringham. Her Majesty, 83, paid £44.40 (about $72) for her off-peak single ticket. For the record, she currently has an annual salary of £7.9 million (over $12 million).
We know that her son, Prince Charles, traveled to Copenhagen in an outrageous jet (like so many elites) so perhaps the Queen was trying to show up his green and frugal cred a bit by making the 100 mile trip by public transport.
Officials did ensure that no one else sat in the Queen’s 12-seat compartment, although they insisted it would have been opened up to passengers if the other first-class compartment had been crowded.
Passenger Gemma Birrell, 16, said: “I didn’t recognize her straight away and thought it might be a B-list celebrity.”
For the record, as a Brit myself, I really wanted to call this post “QE2 Takes the Train”.
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Tagged: queen elizabeth
I just wanted to make a small correction to your article. Prince William is Queen Elizabeth’s grandson not her son, her son is Prince Charles.
Elizabeth is the Queen of the United Kingdom not England. There has been no Queen of England since the Acts of union in 1707.
Her son is Prince Charles and her grandson is Prince William. I would expect “a Brit, as myself” to know that.
I think this is too great to be true but so it is. I salute you,Your Royal Majesty, QE2……
Doh, sorry about the Charles/William typo there. William didn’t even go to Copenhagen but I had been reading another piece about him prior to posting which is my only excuse. Apologies for that typo, it’s been changed above. And good history there Mike, as she is most commonly referred to casually as “the Queen of England” it sometimes works better in rhetoric. I hope you can forgive the taking of liberties with that.
Good on her! The Queen has the right idea, it’s better than flying by jet anyday!
Emma