£40,000 would save historic van (From Witney Gazette)

£40,000 would save historic van

9:00am Wednesday 6th September 2006 in Witney

A CAMPAIGN has been launched to save the railway van which carried Sir Winston Churchill to Hanborough on his way to his final resting place in Bladon.

The Southern Railway parcels and luggage van was repainted in Pullman colours and decorated to form part of the wartime leader and prime minister's funeral train, on January 30, 1965.

It was exported to California in 1965, where it forms part of a mock English railway station on a golf course at a resort hotel in Los Angeles.

But the historic van has now been declared surplus to requirements by its current owners, the Los Angeles City of Industry.

Los Angeles mayor, David Perez, has offered it 'as a gift to the British people'.

Campaigners need to raise £40,000 to transport the van to its new home on the Swanage Railway, in Dorset, and restore it back to running order.

If the Churchill Project appeal fails, the historic Southern Railway van number S2464S will be broken up.

Steve Doughty, deputy chairman of the Swanage Railway Trust, which runs Swanage Railway, said: "We are endeavouring to avoid any possibility of the historic van being broken up, and are seeking support for its return to the UK because of its historical importance.

"The van was painted in Pullman Livery in 1962, and stored in anticipation of its eventual requirement to bear Winston Churchill's coffin on its final journey to West Oxfordshire after his state funeral.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Prime Minister during the Second World War, was born on November 30, 1874, in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, and died on January 24, 1965.