King Charles III is selling off the royal train while Britain drowns in a sea of welfare costs, illegal immigration expenses, and a ballooning public sector—priorities that expose the absolute absurdity of modern monarchy.
At a Glance
- Buckingham Palace has announced the 156-year-old Royal Train will be decommissioned by 2027 as a “cost-cutting” measure.
- The train costs over £44,000 per journey but was only used twice in the last year.
- The move comes as the monarchy’s overall taxpayer funding, the Sovereign Grant, is set to soar to £132.1 million to pay for palace renovations.
- The train will be replaced by a new fleet of “fuel-efficient helicopters.”
All Aboard the Fiscal Hypocrisy Express
In a public relations move designed to signal fiscal responsibility, King Charles III has announced that the Royal Train, a symbol of the monarchy for 156 years, will be retired from service. The gesture, however, rings hollow as the Royal Family’s overall cost to the British taxpayer continues to balloon.
While decommissioning the rarely used train may save a few pounds, the official royal accounts show that the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant is set to increase to an eye-watering £132.1 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The massive increase is largely to continue funding the £369 million renovation of Buckingham Palace.
Royal Train Retired After 156 Years as King Charles III Cuts Costs https://t.co/cHIONMvaOh
— The Daily Guardian (@DailyGuardian1) July 1, 2025
Swapping a Train for “Fuel-Efficient Helicopters”
The fiscal theater continues with the palace’s announcement that the train will be replaced with new, “fuel-efficient helicopters.” This comes after a year in which the Royal Family’s travel expenses already rose to £4.7 million, including 141 helicopter trips at a cost of nearly half a million pounds.
A palace official, James Chalmers, delivered the official justification with a straight face. “But in moving forward we must not be bound by the past,” he said, according to The Guardian. “The time has come to bid the fondest of farewells as we seek to be disciplined and forward in our allocation of funding.”
The Real Cost of Royal Pageantry
What’s particularly galling is how the monarchy continues to justify its exorbitant cost through “engagements” and “appearances.” Royal accountants reported the family conducted over 1,900 engagements and hosted nearly 94,000 guests at royal events last year—a lot of taxpayer-funded finger sandwiches.
Meanwhile, the Duchy of Cornwall, the massive land estate that funds the heir to the throne, reported a profit of £22.9 million. As the anti-monarchy group Republic points out, these official figures do not even include the astronomical and hidden security costs of protecting the Royal Family, which are also paid for by the taxpayer.
Defenders of the institution, like constitutional scholar Craig Prescott, argue the monarchy provides “soft power” that “puts Britain on the world stage,” as he told the Washington Times. But for a nation grappling with a cost-of-living crisis, the value of an unelected, hereditary head of state living in taxpayer-funded luxury seems increasingly questionable.
