Royal Family’s symbolic journey on National Day: Homage paid to the founders of Great Romania

On December 1, the National Day of Romania, Princess Margaret and Prince Radu will attend a symbolic journey from Sinaia to Bucharest, intended to pay homage to King Ferdinand and Queen Marie. The guests of the couple will be Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, the daughter of Princess Ileana of Romania and her husband.According to a press release sent to Mediafax, the journey by Royal train will also be attended by Princess Marie and Prince Nicholas.This year, the Royal Family decided to visit the municipalities of Ploiesti, Focsani, Ramnicu – Sarat and Buzau, during a symbolic journey from Sinaia to Bucharest. The Royal Family invites the inhabitants of these cities to come to the railway station to pay homage to the founders of Great Romania. This is the meaning of the December 1 in history.The Royal Family will leave the Peles Castle and arrive to the Sinaia railway station at 9 am. The departure of the train is scheduled at 9:08. The train is scheduled to arrive to Ploiesti South at 10:19 and will leave at 10:38.The next stop is Buzau, at 11:55. The journey will be continued at 12:10 pm, towards Ramnicu Sarat, where the stop is planned at 12:47. Afterwards, the train will leave at 1:02 pm to Focsani, where it will arrive at 1:45. The departure to Bucharest is scheduled at 2:15. The Royal train will bring the Royal Family back to Bucharest, to the Baneasa railway station, in the evening.The Royal train was ordered by King Ferdinand 1 in Italy, in 1926 and it was delivered to Romania after Ferdinand’s death, in 1928.

History of the Royal Train

The Royal Train was ordered by King Ferdinand from the Ernesto Breda Company in Milan, and delivered in 1928. King Carol II, King Mihai I, Nicolae Ceausescu, and foreign officials such as Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Leonid Brejhnev, Erich Honecker and Todor Jivkov, have also traveled on Romanian Royal Train.After becoming the property of the communist state after 1948, the train was also used by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nicolae Ceausescu. In the autumn of 1955, in the saloon-carriage of the train, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Nikita Khrushchev held discussions related to the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from the territory of Romania. On August 6, 1975, Ceausescu traveled by the Royal Train accompanied by U.S. President Gerard Ford and State Secretary Henry Kisinger, on the train from Bucharest to Sinaia. On the same day, at the lunch discussions organized at Peles Castle, it was decided to award Romania a “Most Favored Nation” clause. During hunting parties organized by Ceausescu, other state presidents also traveled on the Royal Train train: Todor Jivkov, Leonid Brejnev, Erich Honecker. Ceausescu used the train until 1984, when he ordered a private coach, manufactured in Arad at the Astra coach works with Swedish materials.Among those who rented the Royal Train was director Francis Ford Coppola: on one occasion, he took the train out on a shoot session at night, at Obor Station. The train was also taken out from the depot for a tour by representatives of the Louis Vuitton.Today, the steam locomotive is still operational and can travel at a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour. It has 9,000 horsepower, can pull 40 coach cars and has an automatic pilot.