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London North Western
Railway:
Midland
Railway:
Stratford
Midland Junction Railway
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LMS Route: Stratford Midland Junction - The Shakespeare
Route
Stratford on Avon Station: smjsa283
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Ex-LMS 5MT 4-6-0 No 44919 enters the former SMJ station with
the empty rolling stock of the royal train on 11th July 1964. Her Royal
Highness the Queen Mother was visiting Stratford upon Avon and had alighted at
the former GWR station. The train was held at her disposal overnight in the
station. Arthur Jordan wrote in his book, 'Only a few months before final
closure of the SMJ line and twelve years after withdrawal of regular passenger
services a short stretch of the Up platform, near the signal box. was
re-surfaced in preparation for a Royal visitor! After ninety years existence
the 'Slow, Miserable and Jolty' was honoured by accommodating the Royal Train
which had travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon over the ex-GWR line. The Queen
Mother, unlike Shakespeare's Brutus, had not come to bury the SMJ but to praise
the volunteers who had restored the Stratford Canal which Her Majesty declared
re-opened. Regrettably Her Majesty will never be called upon to perform a
similar ceremony for the SMJ. Understandably the ex-GWR station was selected
for Her Majesty's entry into Shakespeareland but for her departure in the late
evening the honour was bestowed upon the old SMJ station, by then known as Old
Town. Fortunately it was too dark for the royal personage to discern the grain
silos, Hutchings' transport depot or Quinncy's dairy as she was whisked from
theatre to dilapidated station. Incidentally, the resurfacing of the SMJ
platform specially for this one passenger prompted a protest from the local
branch of the National Union of Railwayman, which considered it an extravagance
at a time when British Railways were being subjected to extensive closures and
economies'.
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