At 11:30 in the morning of 13th June 1842, Queen Victoria left Windsor and headed to Slough Station, where she was to embark on her very first train ride and became the first monarch to travel by railroad.
Like many Victorians, Queen Victoria was scared that the trains speed would cause damage to her brain so put a 40 mile per hour restriction on the trains speed. Despite her initial fears, Victoria found herself in ore of the experience, which lasted around half an hour. In her journal she describes how the saloon she travelled in had been “very large & beautifully filled up”. She adds that “the motion was very slight, & much easier than a carriage, also no dust or great heat, — in fact, it was delightful, & so quick”.
Over the next few years the railroad drastically increased in scale and popularity, offering Victorians a new, quicker way of travelling to different parts of the country that would otherwise have been inaccessible without days of travel. In February 1843 Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that she found “the motion so very easy far more so, than a carriage, & cannot understand how any one can suffer from it.” By the following decade Victoria used the railroad almost weekly as she travelled between her royal residences: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Osborne House and Balmoral Castle, as well as to attend official duties around the country.
