KING Charles has used the royal train for the first time since starting his reign, but it isn't as luxurious as you might expect.
The King travelled overnight down the West Coast on the train from Ayr in Scotland to Manchester.
From Queen Victoria's 1842 commute from Slough to Paddington onwards, Britain's monarchs have often chosen to travel by train.
Victoria's train, commissioned by the locomotive enthusiast Prince Albert, was padded out in a luxurious "colonial" style by Richard Bore.
Her train was upgraded by Edward VII, who added a mahogany smoking room and green velvet saloon, and by George V, who added a bathtub marked with a red line to stop spillage onto the carpeted floor.
The current royal train, which came into service for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, could not be more different.
The dining rooms feature bolted-down formica tables surrounded by plywood furnishings more at home in Travelodge than Balmoral.
One of the dining rooms has a visible bullet hole from a accident in 2000 where a royal bodyguard let off his gun while the Queen was sleeping.
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The king's study features a matching floral settee and drapes, along with net curtains and overhead strip lighting.
The "pistachio room", which was once the hideaway of the late Prince Philip, has an off-white and pastel-green colour scheme continuing from the curtains to seven armchairs positioned around a sideboard on wheels.
The bedrooms on the train are austere, with single beds and grey bedside tables doubling as wastepaper baskets.
Even the monarch's 75ft saloon carriage has only a single bed and functional desk, along with a Seventies-style brass-tap bathtub.
Pictures of mounted hussars may have travellers pining for travel on horseback.
The claret-and-grey train holds nine carriages, with bedrooms, dining-rooms and a study for the monarch.
Each trip on the train costs around £130.84 per mile, the Mail reports.
During the 2002 Golden Jubilee, the royal family's trips on the train cost the taxpayer £872,000
The German firm DB Cargo is paid £300,000 a year to maintain the rolling stock.
King Charles alighted from the train in navy trousers and a a pale-pink ties, and was received by Mancunian dignitaries including Andy Burnham, the city's mayor.
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