Heritage rail sector ‘must become carbon neutral’
IT IS very positive news that, despite mine closures in the UK, the supply of steam coal looks assured for the foreseeable future. One dark cloud has lifted from our horizons – but, potentially, an even bigger related threat is not far away.
For a year, Covid-19 has largely swept away other items normally top of the media and national agenda. The eventual passing of Brexit attracted relatively little comment compared to the all-pervasive bitter national and international in-fighting that dominated the news from the referendum until March 2020.
However, once the pandemic retreats and the remaining post-Brexit squalls die down, climate change will become the world’s number one agenda item.
Environmental campaigners, some of them very proactive, will be fighting to reduce emissions, and governments around the world will be under pressure to meet their own targets.
Many parts of life will change rapidly as new technologies – which are already evolving – will ensure vast swathes of commerce and domestic life will become carbon-free.
For coal-fired steam this is simply not an option currently, so we need to start thinking now.
The good news is there are very real solutions out there. It can be done relatively quickly and easily – and it needn’t be expensive.
Approach
To protect its future, the steam movement should agree that we need to develop a well thought-out, proactive, industrywide plan – not just on how to rebuff objections, but genuine practical plans to reduce and eventually reverse our carbon footprint and build a sustainable future.
This is entirely possible, but what won’t work is hoping it will go away or that it doesn’t matter. ‘China’s emissions dwarf the rest of the world’... no, that is not an answer. Saying that X or Y behave much worse than we do is not a reason for not doing what we can.
What helps is that steam is so evocative in terms of sight, sound, historical resonance, and general nostalgia. It is easy to capture the media’s attention; the sheer majesty of steam makes great photographs and soundtracks. The flipside is that the very same visibility of coal smoke and the ability of the public to see the magnificent machines makes us an easy target for environmental groups’ attacks.
The majority accept that climate change is real, and that something must be done – at the very least to protect steam’s reputation. However, I believe we should do this because it is right, and do so in the spirit of optimism and with a fervent, genuine willingness to preserve our planet. If we do so quickly, we will almost certainly engender enough goodwill to carry on with our passion that gives so much pleasure.
Consultation
Before we set up Steam Dreams, we talked to environmental consultants. The opinion back then in the 1990s was ‘any train is better than any car’.
I doubt they would be so sanguine now. At the time it felt like a green light, and we opened up the regulator with our first train to Salisbury in 1999. A full ‘Cathedrals Express’ programme followed in 2000.
It soon became clear that climate change concerns were growing. In 2005 we began offsetting our carbon footprint and, along with Eurostar, we became one of the first train companies in the world to do so.
A company called Carbon Clear looked at every aspect of our business – not just coal burned, but also our own travel to and from our trains, and emissions from our water tanker and coal lorry – even down to the office and the amount of paper we used and told us how much it would cost.
Mitigation
Offsetting was achieved through tree planting and supporting renewable energy projects in Kenya, Sudan and India. Interestingly, the voluntary passenger contribution, around 1% of the ticket price, was initially taken up by fewer than 50% of passengers, but over the years it has become almost universal as passengers wanted to do their bit.
Steam Dreams’ new owner, David Buck, has retained the carbon neutral programme and is going further. The company’s new production kitchen is eschewing gas power, instead being fitted with solar panels and a wind turbine.
With more than 100 organisations involved in steam in the UK – whether heritage railways, locomotive owners or main line promoters – if we take action collectively, we can justify our continued existence and potentially do something amazing. Assessing emissions can be done using a carbon offsetting organisation. This could easily be done, perhaps through the good offices of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) and maybe involving Network Rail, without requiring massive bureaucratic effort from each part of the industry.
Looking further into the future, who’s to say that within our very diverse and brilliant engineering ranks there isn’t the potential inheritor of the genius mantle of Gresley, Bulleid, Stanier, or Churchward, who will design the first standard gauge locomotive to run on a fully-renewable fuel like biomass!
The steam movement can’t hope that this goes away. So, as the Covid-19 crisis begins to slip into fish and chip wrapping territory, let’s perpare for our next great endeavor – making UK steam carbon neutral, not by 2050, not even 2040, but far earlier, at some time in this decade.
As with climate change in general, there is no time to waste, so let’s open that regulator right up and get on with it – full steam ahead!
‘Important role’
Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE commented: “I strongly support decarbonisation. However, I’m concerned about the future for steam locomotives and heritage railways which play such an important role in our history and tourist economy.
“With UK-mined coal likely to no longer be available after 2022 or possibly even sooner, this presents a significant problem. The immediate solution is to import, which is even more environmentally damaging than mining in the UK. We must look at new ways of operating steam locomotives while becoming greener and more sustainable.
“Network Rail is doing what it can in helping the HRA with an initiative to create biocoal suitable for steam engines. While this is still at the research and development stage, trials suggest biocoal may be suitable and achievable – hopefully made within the UK in due course.
“If we all work together, we can keep steam traction alive.”