BACK in STEAM

EDDYSTONE EMERGES FROM £350K REFURB

At a recent online seminar on the future of heritage fuels (being a journalist is not all footplate rides and Pullman dining trains, y’know), one theme stood out. It wasn’t diminished UK coal supplies or carbon emissions – it was education. Specifically, it was the importance of educating younger generations and demonstrating to them the value of our industrial heritage.

It brought to mind something my partner said to me. In one of her geography lessons, she asked her 12-year-old students to name things we mine. The responses were all precious metals and gems, but not one of those students gave what to us might seem like the obvious answer: coal.

That response is hardly surprising, for coal does not form a part of most children’s everyday lives; as far as today’s children are concerned, coal is a dirty, polluting fuel that’s a significant contributor to climate change – and that’s a problem.

It’s all too easy to dismiss young people’s environmental concerns as being ‘woke’, but they represent our future. If they see coal and, by extension, coal-burning as the enemy – if they do not see the value of railways and steam locomotives – then we’re in trouble. It should therefore be a matter of priority for railways to engage with young people and show them the importance of what we do and the ways in which we mitigate our already negligible environmental impact.

There are already some great educational programmes out there – in particular that run by National Mining Museum Scotland – that explain coal and steam power in a 21st-century context and engage young people’s interest, so we could learn a lot from other areas of the industrial heritage movement.

The times are a-changin’, and if we can secure the youth vote, we will have a bright future ahead of us.

WARREN HANNABUSS ‘A4’ No. 60009 Union of South Africa approaches Summerseat foot crossing on the East Lancashire Railway with an 18-wagon test train on April 24 – its first moves for nearly a year.