Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 last Thursday, a number of cogs began turning and long-made plans were put into place.
As part of this formal process, the Queen’s body is currently Lying-in-State in Westminster Hall at London’s Palace of Westminster, giving members of the public a chance to pay their respects up until 6:30 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 19, the day of the Queen’s funeral.
As you can probably imagine, this isn’t a simple feat. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to travel to see the Queen, which means a very long wait — and, of course, an extremely long queue.
The queue itself is such a huge logistical operation the government has issued an actual map for it, showing a route complete with water and first aid stations stretching for miles along the River Thames.
Yes, that’s the queue marked on the map.
Credit: Gov.UK
That map shows the route the queue will take as more people join it, but for people arriving there’s a livestream tracker showing the nearest landmark and constantly updating what3words location for newcomers. At the time of writing the queue is over three miles long, and has already grown by around half a mile in the past two hours.
Unsurprisingly, people are fascinated by the sheer scale of the queue. Over 8,000 people are currently watching the livestream, and the Twitter thread below has been shared over 20,000 times.
The maximum length the queue can reach before it is capped is 10 miles long, which is roughly three times its current length.
“Please note that the queue is expected to be very long,” reads the guidance on the official UK Parliament website. “You will need to stand for many hours, possibly overnight, with very little opportunity to sit down, as the queue will keep moving.”
