Full steam ahead to railway heaven

Alternative funerals: One-way ticket to cemetery targets locomotive buffs

It is the one-way ticket to heaven for railway fans. Along an eight- mile stretch of railway in North Wales the ultimate funeral service is being prepared for steam train buffs.

Peace Burials, a Lancashire company specialising in alternative funerals, spotted a chink in the post-death market. And it is now going into partnership with the Llangollen railway to draw deceased steam enthusiasts along one of the most scenic train routes in Britain to their final resting place.

The unique service will carry a coffin between Llangollen, Clwyd, and a new terminus due to be completed in the spring at Carrog, eight miles away.

A budget price of pounds 25 will transport the coffin while mourners travel on the normal service train. But for pounds 3,000 to pounds 4,000 the train can be pulled by a special black locomotive with four bars and two restaurants to service a wake for up to 200 mourners.

A hearse drawn by blackplumed horses could be on hand for the final few feet to the cemetery, where Carrog community council has given permission for railway fans from outside the Corwen valley to be buried. The alternative is returning to road for final removal to a churchyard anywhere in the country.

"There is no question of bad taste," said Colin Keyse, the commercial manager of the railway, which was saved from ruin in 1975 and restored by volunteers.

It already lays on functions such as wedding receptions and Christmas- time trips to visit Santa. "To some extent we're resurrecting an established railway procedure. Almost since the 1830s, coffins have been carried on trains in this country," said Mr Keyse.

The railway had been guided by the advice of the funeral directors. "There is a growing market for people who want to make funerals a celebration of life. It's the kind of thing which will appeal to steam fans. It is easy to forget now that for a large section of the population, travel by train was a very large part of life 25 or 30 years ago.

"Travelling behind a steam train is evocative of a way of life which people see as having gone and hanker after."

Although the initiative, to be launched next year, is not expected to be a money-spinner, Llangollen Railway and Peace Burials have signed a seven year contract.

Mary Mallatrat, who runs the funeral firm, said it had had many requests from people wanting a railway theme to their burial. It followed on from other tailor-made funerals the firm had arranged. Woodland burials were a favourite, where ashes are sown to feed a newly-planted tree in the dead person's memory.

Peace Burials aim to be as flexible as possible, she said. John Mallatrat, her husband and a company director, said burial was not the only option for steam fans. "We can arrange a cremation," he said. "With the deceased's ashes being scattered or put into the locomotive fire box."