The train, actually a suite of nine railcars that can be hitched to commercial locomotives, will be decommissioned sometime before the current maintenance contract expires in 2027. That will bring to an end a tradition that dates back to 1869, when Queen Victoria commissioned a pair of special coaches to accommodate her travels.

Victoria, Charles' great-great-great-grandmother, commissioned the first royal rail carriages back in 1869. The latest incarnation is made up of nine carriages, the most recent of them added in 1986.