Overview
- The Queen traveled from Chippenham via Swindon aboard a train named Odette Hallowes GC MBE to join Great Western Railway’s Poppies to Paddington event.
- On Platform 1, the Act of Remembrance featured the Call to Remembrance, the Last Post, a two-minute silence at 11am, the Reveille, and a performance of Poppy Red by the Military Wives Choir.
- She laid a poppy wreath at the station memorial and met the Railway Chaplain, reservists and veterans working in the rail industry, and GWR staff.
- A specially liveried train displayed a Roll of Honour with 2,545 GWR employees who died in the First World War and paid tribute to Allan Leonard Lewis VC and Harold Day DSC.
- The initiative, begun in 2020, gathers wreaths from more than 60 stations and this year also marked 80 years since the end of World War Two, emphasizing the railway’s role in times of conflict.