King Charles’ Alleged Train Affair Resurfaces as Royal Transport Is Set To Retire Soon
In a surprising move, Buckingham Palace announced that the royal family's oldest transport, the royal train, will be retired in 2027 to curb long-term expenses. King Charles' decision to decommission the iconic locomotive reportedly aligns with his efforts to modernise the monarchy. After the cancellation made headlines, another bombshell anecdote resurfaced—this time about Charles' secret rendezvous during his early days on the train. Back when he was 31, the then-Prince is said to have smuggled a 'mystery blonde' onto the train, whom many have believed to be the late Princess Diana.
As reported by the Mirror, in November 1980, the Sunday Mirror’s front page boldly dubbed the royal train as Charles’ 'love train'. The article detailed two alleged late-night trysts between then-Prince Charles and his girlfriend, Lady Diana Spencer. It claimed that the 19-year-old Diana was driven 100 miles from London and discreetly escorted through plain-clothes police lines to meet her Prince on a secluded stretch of track in the Wiltshire countryside. The report also suggested that the couple spent hours alone together, as their budding romance began to capture the nation's imagination.
The scathing story reportedly drew a strong denial from both Diana and the Palace, with the late Queen's press secretary, Michael Shea, calling it 'a total fabrication.' As per the Scottish Daily Express, Sunday Mirror editor Robert Edwards stood by the report, claiming the source was a credible policeman involved in the royal train’s security detail. Just one week after the alleged tryst, Charles reportedly proposed to Lady Diana Spencer and asked her to marry him. Diana addressed the gossip at the time, saying, "Even though they rang me up first, they printed it anyway. Afterwards, they rang up to apologise, but that doesn't change people's minds about what they think when they read a story like that."
While many believed the mystery blonde to be the late Diana, some claimed that she was, in fact, Charles' long-time flame, Queen Camilla. Juror wrote in her book, The Duchess: The Untold Story, that Mirror editor Edwards once received a Christmas card from Woodrow Wyatt, who she revealed was "the maverick politician and writer who was a close friend of the Queen Mother and knew the entire family." Regarding Edwards' story, Wyatt reportedly wrote in the card, "It must have been Camilla." Junor also alleged that Diana allegedly told Wyatt, "that it was her husband’s lover who had been on the train that night," when she was "angry with Camilla" years later, over her affair with Charles.
Royal author Tina Brown has refuted the theory that it was Camilla with Charles on the train that night. Writing in her book, The Diana Chronicles, she said, "If it was Camilla, why didn't Diana include the incident in her remorseless narrative of marital torture and betrayal in any of her confessional gut spilling for Andrew Morton or Martin Bashir?" Charles and Diana ultimately divorced in 1996 after 15 years of marriage, following infidelity on both sides. The 'People’s Princess' tragically lost her life in a car crash on August 31, 1997, at 36 years old.