Winton Train
As a result of Sir Nicholas' efforts in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, a total of seven locomotives transported 669 Czechoslovak children of mainly Jewish heritage from Prague to safety in Great Britain.
[1] Sir Nicholas' kindertransport efforts remained largely unrecognised until 1988, when they came to public attention after his wife found a scrapbook in their attic documenting the details.
After a transfer by ferry to Harwich, the journey resumed by train again to arrive in London's Liverpool Street station on 4 September, where it was met by the 100-year-old Sir Nicholas himself.
For the journey across mainland Europe, the train was formed of period carriages and was hauled by historically authentic steam locomotives, while the British leg was hauled by 60163 Tornado, a brand-new, main-line British steam locomotive completed in 2008, along with carriages that were constructed in the 1950s.
The tribute train was the centrepiece of a wider cultural awareness project known as 'Inspiration by Goodness', organised by the Czech government.
Between March and September 1939, the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II, Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old British stockbroker whose parents were of German Jewish descent,[2][3][4] organised eight trains to transport mainly Jewish Czech and Slovak refugee children from Czechoslovakia to homes in Britain.
[4] In 1939, Winton cancelled a trip to a Swiss holiday resort to go to Prague, having heard of a growing refugee crisis resulting from the German occupation of Czechoslovakia from a friend.
[4][6] Later rescues were organised by Gertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer from the Netherlands in cooperation with Jewish committees in Britain, Holland, Nazi-Germany and Nazi-Austria from December 1938 through August 1939, totalling 10,000 children.
[5] Winton and a team identified those children most at risk from the thousands of refugees driven south following the Nazi invasion of the Sudetenland.
[3] Beginning in March, Winton organised eight trains, which in total transported 669 mainly Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia to Great Britain.
[7] The train was part of a wider project encompassing social and cultural events along the route to "inspire young people through the deeds of Nicholas Winton", and with the theme of "Inspiration by Goodness", it incorporated art, film, photographic and literary contests by university students and school children.
[6] The Czech Senate President Přemysl Sobotka said of the project that it "should warn against rising extremism and anti-Semitism in Europe and in the world".
[17] Travelling through the Czech Republic from Prague to Furth im Wald, the train was double-headed by locomotives No.
486.007, known as the Green Anton is a preserved steam locomotive built in 1936 and based in Vrútky, Slovakia, owned by Slovak Republic Railways (ŽSR).
01 1075 is a preserved steam locomotive built in 1940 and based at the Stoom Stichting Nederland (SSN) railway museum in Rotterdam.
[15] For the British leg, behind Tornado and her maroon support coach, the train was headed by Pegasus, a cream and brown Pullman Bar Car incorporating the Trianon Bar, followed by the historic 1950s built red and cream The Royal Scot rake of British Railways Mark 1 passenger coaches of Riviera Trains.
