103: King Coal

‘My noble lord.’

‘Ah! Anthony.’

‘I’m surprised to find you here, shouldn’t you be in Whitehall, fighting off yet another crisis?’

‘Merely a little R and R, to recharge the batteries.’

‘Yes. That’s rather the problem isn’t it, wind and solar energy never arrives when you want it to, batteries can’t hold a full charge for twenty-four hours and the wires are never more than semi-conductors.’

‘Not my responsibility old man, I’m strictly post-Brexit stuff.’

‘But you sit at the cabinet table. You must hear things.’

‘There are usually twenty-five people in that room for a two-hour meeting. That’s less than five minutes each, if you’re lucky.’

‘Do you know anything about transport?’

‘Historically it’s had the highest turnover of ministers of any department. Though, what with the fall, others must be catching up.’

‘As in decline and fall?’

‘So, one must assume.’

‘Lucky you were ennobled then.’

‘Luck had nothing to do with it. Anyway, what’s your interest?’

‘I and some like-minded individuals, have been acquiring former railway land throughout the south of the county for some years now.’

‘Really!’

‘Ever heard of the Fell Mining Corporation?’

‘Heard of them? My dear fellow, my old firm is into them for... Well, a considerable amount. They’re sitting on this nation’s highest quality industrial coal deposits. With money to burn, if you’ll excuse the pun, but with a slight public relations problem.’

‘How would they like to buy-up, lock, stock and barrel, one of our best, but worst run heritage railways?’

‘But you can’t do that, such people are wrapped in various charity, stroke trust, stroke third sector non-profit, non-tax paying, volunteer shareholder schemes - you wouldn’t believe! You’d need the expertise of an... Arlington Trust to get around that one... You know, the reason preserved railways have been in the doldrums of late is that their single greatest expense is steam coal. I say, I’ve always wanted to plan a corporate raid from the bar of a gentleman’s club!’

I ended up buying Frimley lunch and taking him into my confidence over the full extent of what I’d come to think of as the Steam West project. Then I explained that almost everyone assumed the desired avoiding line for the eroding coastal route was the old Southern Railway, and that although we owned three odd bits of land which could be used to delay it, our desired route was the less obvious old GWR line. ‘But really Anthony, that was a single track, much is now enjoyed as footpaths, and it is crossed by a dual carriageway!’

‘But still a cheaper option for the government. At some point, if the motorway is to proceed further west, the current arrangement of dividing into three dual carriageways halfway up a hill, just a mile south, will need to be realigned, involving a heightening of our carriageway, as it were, it would be a simple matter of allowing the new elevation to continue awhile, and let the railway run along the existing road.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’

Once that had sunk in, I continued; ‘What we’re proposing as a settlement, is a collaboration, in which we own the infrastructure from the old naval port all the way to Morestead, including the biggest current eyesore en-route, the Abbey Station.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Network Rail and the current operator have been making ever more desperate attempts to clean it up and reduce its size for decades, with every new initiative it just looks worse. The answer of course is to restore it to its former glory. We’ll pay, the town will love it. The best layout was achieved in nineteen twenty-nine, it lasted until the end of steam.’

‘Anthony, the government will never hand over the ownership of a mainline station!’

‘All the land to the south is held by the local authority, worth remembering how they acquired it. It was when it was all a private estate that part of it was sold to the GWR, later the council took over the remainder for their heritage style headquarters, then at the government’s bidding they bought back more and more land from the railway, making the railway accounts look good.’

‘Stop. I think I know where you’re going with this.’

‘Well, there are other ways of considering the proposition. Every night the up and down Night Riviera sleeper passes through, pulled by an old Diesel which gives off more emissions than our computer controlled, oil-fired, mainline steam locos will.’

‘How come?’

‘Well, when the weekly steam hauled Bay Express resumes from platform one at Paddington, it will run non-stop to our great cathedral city on cruise control...’

‘But how does it work?’

‘Like the Swiss Glacier Express. The oil is injected through an atomiser, like a perfume bottle, the flash not only gives instant heat but something like ninety-eight per cent of the oil is burnt off, virtually nothing left to go up the chimney.’

‘I see, I think.’

‘Of course, the royal train is worse, half the size and with an old Diesel at both the front and back, but then old railwaymen and many locals remember it for another reason.’

‘Oh, god.’

‘Yes, how the few remaining miles of the Morestead branch line track has been used as a favourite overnight stop for the luxury train, it’s royal passengers and guests, particularly in the nineteen eighties and early nineties. Not quite at the heart of the Duchy, but...

‘I should warn you, I’m an active member of the Privy Council.’

‘Some photographic evidence even, of the married Prince’s mistress arriving and departing. Ironic really, that he should now wish to see her crowned alongside himself.’

‘I’ve always thought of you as a loyal subject of the Crown, Anthony.’

‘Oh! Indeed. Never more so, but then to coin an old military phrase, one salutes the uniform, not the man.’

A few weeks later I found myself sheltering from the rain, under a canopy, part way along the harbour side. ‘Captain!’

‘Anthony! Not like you to be lurking in the shadows.’

‘Yes, I normally leave that sort of thing to Charlie.’

‘She’s not here I take it?’

‘I’ve not taken her fully into my confidence yet, have you time to walk and talk?’

‘All the time in the world old boy.’

‘I suspect you may be becoming persona non grata with the council, or the harbour authorities at least.’

‘I know. That’s the only downside to the move.’

‘Ever thought of just sailing off to the next bay along, I mean what with your naval connections and the potential of your craft as a training vessel?’

‘I’d have moved some little time ago, were it not for those shits who run the marina there.’

‘The marina company are under new ownership; I’m pleased to report.’

‘Who?’

‘Specifically, the Fell Mining Corporation.’

‘Good lord!’

‘But as part of a new collaboration with my family trust and other prominent local businesses, working title, Steam West.’

‘The marina company operated from the old railway land of the GWR, the locomotive sheds, where the turntable used to be, that meant control of access to the wharf, also once owned by the railway. They posed as a benevolent force, were quiet heavy investors in the preserved railway, but in practice they blocked any attempts at real restoration.’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Now that is something I’d like to see; doubt I’ll live long enough though.’

‘You could play a major role in it.’

‘How?’

‘Do you have any contact with those who command your old alma mater?’

‘My dear fellow, the place is run by the daughters of my contemporaries!’

‘Well, we both know what that’s like.’

‘Er?’

‘You see, the thing is, your priority as I understand it, is that the charity should have an income from the yacht, that might not mean selling her as such, you could bequeath her to the charity, then rent her out permanently, to just the one client.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Then you could rest easy seeing out your days in the admiral's cabin at The Grange. And, perhaps after cadets or ratings or whatever the terminology is, have learnt to sail coastal waters in a green, traditional way, they might care for a little volunteering at the charity...’

‘You, you... I was going to say you’ve got more front than Magdalen Place, but you’re giving that even more as we speak!’ Then after a long pause whilst staring inland; ‘It was your father who saved your old apartment building, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a good son, Anthony. Not sure why I should say that, but on-board ship one’s a kind of stand-in for everyone in authority.’

‘Thank you.’