Fat Contoller Redundant?

Redundancy for the Fat Controller?

By Kent Barker

Did I mention I’m involved with a little Café Theatre group?  We go round pubs and clubs performing a play about 18^th Century smuggling in Kent and Sussex, chronicling the activities of the Hawkhurst Gang.  Our initial amateur antics were considerably enhanced by the addition of two proper actors. Our leading lady is pretty much retired from previous roles in art house movies but our principal man still works regularly on stage and small screen.  In between bigger parts, James plays Sir Topham Hatt at Thomas the Tank Engine events.  (The character is more usually known as the Fat Controller, but James rather takes umbrage whenever we refer to him as such!)

Now I was vaguely aware that local railway societies held TTTE (Thomas The Tank Engine) days and that a locomotive, painted light blue and with a face stenciled on the front of the smokebox door, came along to entertain visiting toddlers – indeed I took my own lad to such an event a number of years back.  But we were not graced by the presence of Sir Topham Hatt and, quite frankly, I would never have guessed that this curious character would provide gainful employment for actors.

These TTTE days are part of a bigger passion – I would almost say obsession – that we have with railways.  Take my local one.  The Rother Valley line opened in 1900 running, eventually, between Tenterden and Robertsbridge.  In 1904 it became the Kent & East Sussex Light Railway and was taken over by British Railways in 1948.  This was not good news because the passenger service was closed six years later, and the entire line shut in 1961, two years before the notorious Dr Beeching recommended slashing about half the country’s entire rail network.

But were the people of the Rother valley going to take this lying down?  Oh, no. They immediately formed the Kent and East Sussex Railway Preservation Society and, by 1971, had steam trains running again between Tenterden and Rolvenden. Year by year they extended the derelict line and in 2004 reached Bodiam. Now plans are afoot to open the last part of the 14 mile section as far as Robertsbridge.

Before I question the wisdom of this let me say I love seeing the little trains chugging along and when I last travelled on the line - about 20 years ago -  it was thoroughly enjoyable, with lovely views across the valley and dinky little stations like Wittersham Road to pass through.  But I suppose I do rather question this whole nostalgia thing.  I’m old enough (just) to remember regular steam train services on main lines.  And thoroughly inefficient, noisy, dirty and smelly they were too.  The coming of the diesel and then the electric locomotive was a major improvement in environmental terms, let alone in reliability, punctuality and speed.

Today we have dozens of ‘heritage’ railways, generally charging extortionate sums for tourists to travel a few miles.  Heavens knows what it’s costing to relay the track from Bodiam to Robertsbridge, but as I discussed last week the restoration of a locomotive (GWR 4253) powerful enough to pull the carriages along this new stretch is costing at least £375,000.  And what do we get at the end of it?  Seasonal and infrequent trains that no one actually uses as proper transport.  Wouldn’t it be rather better to install a driverless, electric, one carriage train or tram shuttle service that would run all year round and at times when people actually needed to travel?  Tourists could still have the pleasure of travelling through the beautiful countryside, but on the line but it would actually be of benefit to others too.

In the part of France I frequent they’ve recently instituted a wonderful ‘go anywhere for one euro’ train fare for their small branch lines.  It means you can leave Beziers in the morning and travel up to the magnificent Tarn gorge for lunch or a picnic, gazing up in wonder at Norman Foster’s epic Millau Viaduct bridge.  But the train is also used by farmers taking their produce to market, or children travelling to school.  It’s seen as a public service worthy of receiving a subsidy.

In Britain we end up with a group of well meaning volunteers and fund-raisers bent on preserving costly outdated and redundant steam trains for tourists.   And even if my idea of re-opening all the Beeching lines for tram-trains is impractical, then better perhaps to turn them into cycleways, or footpaths or, another French innovation, the rail bike.  This enables families to pedal their way along the tracks, getting some exercise while admiring the view.

The trouble is, I suppose, that without heritage railways there’ll be nowhere for Thomas to run, and my mate, Fat Controller James, will be out of a job.

ends