Foreman of the royal train ‘brought the monarch to the people’

CHRIS HILLYARD: 1957-2024

Chris Hillyard, who has died of cancer aged 67, was involved in the maintenance of the royal train for 33 years, from 1996 to 2010 as its manager. Travelling on every journey to deal with any technical hitches, he made 794 trips with Queen Elizabeth II and senior royals.

Dressed in black blazer and grey trousers, he would hold the door open for the Queen when she arrived to board the train, and lift the step and close the door once the passengers were aboard.

Chris Hillyard: “The whole thing is very functional, with bedrooms, lounges, bathrooms, offices, dining areas and areas for the household to do their job. It’s the royal household on the move.”

Beyond upkeep of the train, as foreman of its maintenance team, his duties included liaising with the palace’s director of royal travel and meeting and greeting his passengers, including the occasional visiting head of state. He was awarded the Royal Victorian Medal by the Queen in 2002.

Hillyard left school at 16 to start at British Rail’s Wolverton works north-west of London and four years later joined the team maintaining the royal train. He was its manager through privatisation of the railways, but in 2010 was made redundant by the German company then operating it.

Over the years, he got to see the family at their most relaxed. “The train is used as downtime for the monarch a lot of the time,” he said. “After they’ve done their engagements they can come back, relax and then prepare for what’s next. It gives a secure location.”

A carriage of the royal train at Liverpool Lime Street train station at the start of a day-long visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 2011.Credit: Getty Images

He found the Queen “a charming lady with a wicked sense of humour, a very inquisitive, warm, welcoming person”. Their first encounter came when, trying to deal with a radio communications fault en route from Aberdeen to London, Hillyard accidentally disturbed her nine corgis.

Assured that the Queen and Prince Philip had retired for the night, “I walked across the lounge easing these little soft balls of fur out of the way, and just as I got to the corridor the door opened and her majesty stood there in her curlers and her nightdress. I apologised profusely and explained my presence, and she was most understanding.”

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh arrive on the Royal Train at Birmingham New Street Station to officially open the refurbished station, 2015.Credit: Getty Images

In the mid-1990s, when the train was carrying the Queen from Southampton to Slough after the launch of the P&O cruise liner Oriana, “I was summoned through to her lounge, which I was told was full of smoke.” He realised that a brake pad was dragging on a disc and overheating, but to fix it he had to “excuse myself and climb down the side of the train”.

“Her majesty followed me out of her lounge, looked down and said: ‘I’ll look out for you,’ as I was effecting the repairs. Thankfully they succeeded and we got back on time.” The Queen had been “unfazed”, despite her carriage filling with smoke as she sat there. “But we were a bit concerned, obviously.”

The journeys the Queen took in the royal train varied according to her annual schedule. But, Hillyard recalled, “She was always interested in what was going on, and when I met her majesty away from the train side of things, the conversation was always about railways.”

The royal train is the jewel in Wolverton’s crown, having been maintained there since 1838. The current train consists of nine predominantly black carriages from the 1970s and 1980s, usually hauled by diesel locomotive 67005, Queen’s Messenger, or 67006, Royal Sovereign. Its engine carries a unique four-lamp headcode.

“The whole thing is very functional,” Hillyard said, “with bedrooms, lounges, bathrooms, offices, dining areas and areas for the household to do their job because it is an extension of the household. It’s the royal household on the move.”

A Hillyard innovation was the occasional return of steam haulage for the royal train. The present King had complained as a child when a diesel engine replaced the “steamer”, and Hillyard “set the ball rolling” with the royal household for the use of a steam locomotive. The first, in 2002, was the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Coronation class Pacific 6233, Duchess of Sutherland.

Christopher Hillyard was born on March 4, 1957 at Roade, up the West Coast main line from Wolverton. Several family members had worked on the railway, but his father Denis worked at a factory making piano parts, and his mother Edna in the village co-op.

The family had lived at Roade since at least the 15th century, and in retirement Hillyard chaired the Roade Local History Society. In 2021, the society published his book Cutting Remarks, chronicling Robert Stephenson’s construction of the world’s first long-distance intercity railway through Roade Cutting and the railway life of the village, which had lost its station in 1964.

Hillyard left Roade Comprehensive in 1973 to work at Wolverton, a longstanding builder of carriages, but the last would be produced in 1977 as the workds concentrated on maintaining existing stock with a greatly reduced workforce.

He joined the train’s dedicated maintenance team during the Silver Jubilee year of 1977, one of its busiest as the Queen made numerous trips around the country. The train stopped overnight at obscure but safe locations – notably the stub of a long-closed branch line at Market Harborough.

With privatisation, ownership of the royal train passed from BR to Railtrack to Network Rail, and its operation and maintenance to RailCare, and from 2008 the freight operator DB Schenker (today DB Cargo). Two years later, Hillyard was called in and told of a reorganisation – he was being made redundant.

The news came as a shock, but he worked out his notice period with dignity. On his final trip, the Queen and Prince Philip thanked him and presented him with a signed photograph. In retirement, he concentrated on researching his book and following the fortunes of Sheffield Wednesday.

Chris Hillyard was foreman for the royal train for 33 years.Credit: Courtesy BBC UK

After the Queen died at Balmoral and the decision was taken to fly her coffin from Edinburgh airport to RAF Northolt, he regretted that her train had not been given the honour. Ever since Queen Victoria first used the royal train, it had “brought the monarch to the people”, and he was disappointed it would not bring Elizabeth II to the people one last time.

He saw a promising future for the royal train under King Charles III. “I do know that he has a great love of the train and finds it fits in with the way he and his household work. I’d like to think that his majesty and the new Prince of Wales will use its facilities around the realm to visit the populace.”

Chris Hillyard married in 1983, but his wife died soon after, leaving him with two young daughters. He went on to spend many happy years with his partner, Dawn Jackson.

The Telegraph, London

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