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Ticket to ride Beatles train

The train left London's Waterloo station with the outside of all 18 carriages decorated with memorable scenes and characters from the 1968 feature-length cartoon.

A jazz band struck up the Yellow Submarine song as the train headed off on just one of the promotional events marking the release of the remixed songtrack CD next week, along with a remastered version of the film on video and in cinemas.

It will travel three times a day between London, Paris and Brussels for the next three months.

None of the three surviving ex-Beatles was at Waterloo, but Sir Paul McCartney has said that he hopes to travel on the train during the next three months.

He added: "I won't go on ceremony. I'll just show up on it one day."

One Beatles veteran who did see the train off was Neil Aspinal, the former road manager for the Fab Four.

He said: "I think the train looks fantastic and it's great that the Beatles music is still listened to by the younger generation."

The artwork is the result of four months of hard work by Apple Corp's art director, 26-year-old Fiona Andreanelli.

It took two weeks to print the images from the film and six days to fix them to the train.

The Blue Meanies - the baddies in the Yellow Submarine film - are among the characters featured.

"We wanted each carriage to have not only a different design, but to tell a different part of the Yellow Submarine story," explained Fiona.

"Nobody has ever run 1,200 feet of movie designs down the sides of a train before. It was a tough order and I'm chuffed with the results."

Many passengers had booked their tickets without realising the train was being used to promote the re-release of the Yellow Submarine.

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