The Beatles travel from Munich to Essen

[…] After a very late night everyone stumbled into the garage under the Bayerischer Hof the following morning where a fleet of seven white Mercedes awaited to take us to the station where we would board the train to Hamburg, stopping en route at Essen.

The boys emerged through the garage door looking surprisingly awake with the exception of John who tripped over the step — which made him all the more unsociable.

The police motorcade which escorted us was quite unnecessary at this unearthly hour of the morning, because there was only a handful of onlookers at the station.

The special train which carried the Beatles and their entourage was the same one as used by the Queen last year. The Beatles, together with Brian Epstein (who just about made the train), Tony Barrow, their press officer, Neil, Mal and Alf had their own suite of which consisted of a large dining-room, a lounge, and four bedrooms and bathrooms.

CORN FLAKES

Breakfast was served about ten o’clock and consisted of fruit juice, cornflakes (a Beatles favourite), bacon and eggs, rolls and tea and coffee. After breakfast the boys retired to their compartments to catch some sleep which was interrupted by lunch half way through, and they came back to sleep again till about three o’clock when they came through to the other compartments to chat to everyone and have a few photographs taken. Paul was wearing a beige suit with a cream shirt and a red, yellow and brown striped tie plus his yellow-tinted specs. Ringo was dressed in black slacks and polo-necked sweater with a brown suede jacket. George wore a self-striped maroon velvet jacket and John was geared in his airport departure ensemble — red and White striped trousers with a white jacket.

The train pulled into Essen around four thirty, and as off the train there was a dozen policemen panicking whilst trying to hold back people on the platform — which was laughable. Further down the platform were three men dressed as barbers in white smocks and bald-topped wigs carrying giant-sized combs. As we mounted the stairs it was obvious that the police had underestimated the crowd outside, for suddenly there was a big swoop and everyone started running including the Beatles — John thought it would be better to run the other way in the direction of the train, but as the rest of us were being hurled into cars, Alf grabbed John and threw him in on top of everyone else.

SLOW DRIVE

Again it was the white Mercedes plus police motorcade which took us on a very slow drive to the Grugehalle in Essen. The reason for driving at a funeral march pace, was so that we’d arrive after the audience had gone to their seats.

From The Beatles Monthly Book – August 1966

Neil Aspinall, Road Manager to John, Paul, George and Ringo, continues his story of The Beatles’ most recent German tour during June of last summer.

AFTER the two shows at Munich, we moved out of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel and on to Essen.

We travelled on the Saturday, using our own private train for the eight-hour rail journey. This took us to the North of Germany and along the picturesque banks of the Rhine.

There can’t be a more comfortable train in the world. Everyone had armchair comfort, plus a proper dining room, individual “apartments” with beds and showers, even a radio and telephones!

We had charted the same train used in May, 1965, by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip when they spent a week touring Germany. And the same butler-cum-headwaiter-cum-guide was there to look after The Beatles’ every wish.

It was during the Munich, Essen journey that The Beatles listened to the very first copy of their Revolver album, flown in specially from George Martin’s office in London.

They set up their portable player on the elegant diningroom sideboard and played through the first side while they tackled a luxurious lunch of trepang soup, tournados Rossini and ice cream Furst Puckler with waffles!

“At one thirty we shall reach the Rhine,” said a waiter. In fact, we saw the famous river for the first time at precisely 1.29 p.m. — by which time George and Paul had retired to bed and John was deep in his Thurber book. At 4.32 p.m. we were scheduled to pull in at a little station outside Essen. In fact the train drew alongside the platform at 4.29 p.m., an accomplishment which would put most of the world’s regular rail timetables to shame.

Straight after the two performances in Essen Grugahalle, we went back onto our train and travelled through to Hamburg by night. Waiting for us on board was another lavish meal, a late dinner, for which the menu read:

Shrimp Cocktail
Oxtail Soup with Old Sherry
Medaillons of Veal Hawaii
Kronberger Strawberries with Cream.

By now The Beatles had settled upon a running order for the album, having sorted out the fourteen tracks into a balanced programme sequence.

They’d decided to have George’s Tax Man to open Side One and John’s Tomorrow Never Knows to close Side Two. But they didn’t have an album title.

“It’s really essential that something is decided before we leave Germany,” reminded Brian Epstein and he joined in the thinking session, too. John was the most prolific with all sorts of half-joke half-serious title proposals, ranging from Full Moon to Fat Man And Bobby !

From Fabulous208 – January 7, 1967