Queen Elizabeth shows she knows how to go green.

Queen Elizabeth boarded a regularly scheduled commuter train yesterday for her trip from London to the royal estate at Sandringham for the Christmas holidays. The Queen and her security detail sat in a first-class compartment, which was separated from other passengers by a glass partition.

The Daily Mail reports that her fellow commuters were quite taken by surprise to see their 83 year-old monarch with a silk headscarf appear at King’s Cross.

The Queen’s son, Prince Charles, was recently in the news for traveling to the Copenhagen climate change summit in a private jet, rather than on a regularly-scheduled commercial airline.

The Queen, of course, could have taken the Royal Train but that, as the Daily Mail notes, “costs the taxpayers £57,142 [$93,370] each time it is taken off its sidings.”

See wonderful photos of the Queen  at   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236632/Your-commuter-carriage-awaits-The-Queen-catches-train-journey-Sandringham-Christmas.html

Photos:

Top - King’s Cross  http://www.flickr.com/photos/judepics/1345877200/

Lower right - Royal Train at York museum: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvdmerwe/80193015/

Copyright 2009 — K.J.Collins