Queen Beatrix opens exhibition

Apr 16, 2010, 12:02 GMT

Holland's Queen Beatrix has officially opened an exhibition of royal trains.

The Dutch Railway Museum., based in Utrecht, which is holding the 'Royal Class, Regal Journeys' exhibit, brings together carriages and trains from Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Portugal.

Fittingly the queen arrived on her own private train from The Hague to open the attraction.

The exhibition is being housed in a colonial-era station, with a recreation of the Dutch royal family's 19th-century waiting room at The Hague central station.

Among the trains on display are a saloon coach built in 1910 for Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand -then heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne - which he and wife Sophie travelled in on his ill-fated trip to Sarajevo in 1914 where he was assassinated.

Other exhibits include the oldest preserved royal wagon in the world which was constructed in 1842 and a green train built in 1862 for the Portuguese queen Maria Pia.

Show curator Jos Zijlstra told how some trains came by railroad, while others proved more of a difficulty to transport.

He explained that some trains "were so fragile that they were hoisted onto removal trucks with huge cranes," and others had to be transported to the museum by ship.

The cost of getting the carriages and trains renovated and to the museum was around 550,000 Euros.