The Royal Family's complete transport options list as train decommissioned
1 July 2025, 13:49 | Updated: 1 July 2025, 13:53
The Palace is to retire the royal train by 2027 in a money-saving drive, with each round trip revealed to cost up to £44,000.
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The Firm said on Monday that members would travel by regular train instead after the decommissioning and that they will bid “the fondest of farewells” to their own train.
Their decision comes with the Sovereign Grant Report detailing that a two-day royal train journey in February, from Gloucestershire, to Staffordshire, and then London, cost more than £44,000. A two-day trip on the royal train to Crewe in May 2024 cost £33,147.
Read more: Royal train to be decommissioned, accounts reveal - after two trips cost more than £44,000
The train has nine carriages of suites, dining areas, and bedrooms, allowing His Majesty and company to work and rest while travelling around the country.
Before being decommissioned, the royal train will tour the UK and may eventually be placed on public display.
Cost cutting is on the agenda with royal travel costs reaching £4.7m per year.
Here are the modes of transport by which the royals travel.
Car tenure
There are currently five state cars, two Bentleys and three Rolls-Royces, which are used for public engagements and ceremonial engagements. An open topped Range Rover hybrid has been used for the monarch to be visible at ceremonies.
The Firm also deploys Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles for less formal occasions. These semi-state cars have registration plates and are more likely to take on longer journeys or heavier usage and their more polished equivalents.
Charles has a private collection of vehicles and recently bought a Lotus Eletre. The King is also known to have personally owned several Aston Martins.
Royals have also been seen slumming it on a public bus, although this has been more for the sake of a visit or photo op. The Queen once rode the Victoria line on London’s Underground when it opened, while Charles and Camilla took a Tube to Heathrow when the Piccadilly line extended in the mid 80s. More recently, Elizabeth II was at Baker Street with an Oyster card to mark the anniversary in 2013.
Helicopter
The royal family took 141 helicopter flights last year, costing £475,000.
The King’s Helicopter Flight is a dedicated service based at RAF Odiham in Hampshire and operates two Sikorsky S-76C++ models.
Chartered flight
The family has access to the two light aircraft, which are both the Dassault Falcon 900LX model.
The much larger Airbus A330 MRTT is available to government ministers, and the royal family as is the slightly newer Airbus A321-253NX.
And the royal yacht?
HMY Britannia was in use as a royal yacht from 1954 to 1997 but the Blair administration decided against recommissioning such a vessel.
Since then, 2010s Tory MP Jake Berry had been a cheerleader for a return of the yacht and in 2021 Boris Johnson announced a £250m replacement.
However, subsequent prime minister Rishi Sunak u-turned on this and instead pressed ahead with a multi-role ocean surveillance ship.
