Steam Locomotive, named Winston Churchill
- Made:
- 1945 in Brighton railway works
- railway company:
- Southern Railway
- designer:
- Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid














Steam locomotive, Southern Railway, Battle of Britain class 4-6-2 No 34051 "Winston Churchill", designed by O.V. Bulleid, built at Brighton in 1945, withdrawn in 1965.
Winston Churchill is a Southern Railway Battle of Britain class steam locomotive, built at Brighton Works in 1945. Designed by the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway, Oliver Bulleid, Battle of Britain class locomotives, alongside their West Country sister class, were a new design of steam locomotive known as the Light Pacific.
In a ceremony held at Waterloo Station in 1947, the locomotive was officially named Winston Churchill. Churchill himself did not attend the ceremony and in fact the former Prime Minister had turned down the opportunity to name the locomotive after himself. It was instead named by Lord Dowding.
For Winston Churchill’s state funeral on 30th January 1965 the funeral train was pulled by the eponymous locomotive. Thousands lined the trackside to watch as the train passed. The National Railway Museum held an exhibition to mark 50 years since Churchill’s funeral, Churchill’s Final Journey, in 2015, which featured the locomotive after it underwent a cosmetic restoration at the Mid-Hants Railway.
On display
Locomotion: The National Railway Museum at Shildon
If you are visiting to see this object, please contact us in advance to make sure that it will be on display.
Related people
Details
- Category:
- Locomotives and Rolling Stock
- Object Number:
- 1978-7042
- type:
- steam locomotive
- taxonomy:
-
- vehicles and vehicle components
- vehicle
- locomotive
- credit:
- British Rail, Historical Relics
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