Not motoring
A train, not a plane
Gavin Stamp
With a column like this, I must resist the temptation to be personal. I could, for instance, describe how the other day my train from Norwich to London stopped just outside the station at Diss for over an hour, and how I was subjected to the incompe- tence, stupidity and general contempt for its passengers displayed by a ramshackle privatised organisation called Anglia Rail- ways. But I must not. Instead, I must take my theme from recent articles in the press — that the Prime Minister is reluctant to share a special aeroplane from the Queen's Flight as he thinks he needs a bigger one than the Queen.
I am sorry to learn this — and I am sorry indeed that Mr Blair thinks he really needs his own special plane — with, no doubt, its tail fin decorated by Mr Damien Hirst or some other modish artist. I am afraid there is something irredeemably vulgar about heads of state having personal aircraft. African dictators have them, of course, as does the President of the United States. But why, in these post-imperial days, does a British prime minister need one? He shouldn't have to go abroad that often, after all, and if it is just to travel around the United Kingdom it is an indefensible extravagance as well as setting quite the wrong image for a government which ostensibly wants to pursue a sensible, inte- grated transport policy. Fuel guzzling, pol- luting, noisy aeroplanes should be discouraged for short-distance journeys.
How much better if the Prime Minister commissioned a special train. It would be a smart modern train, exemplifying all the best in modern British design — in terms of style, interior furnishings and in technol- ogy. For this country, after all, initially developed such ideas as the tilting train which other countries without railway-hat- ing, car-obsessed governments pursued to their advantage. It could be the New Labour train, visiting all parts of the King- dom (where rails survive), serving to emphasise how this government is commit- ted to bringing power back to the people, is interested in the regions. It could be Downing Street on wheels — a supremely potent and useful symbol of Cool Britan- nia. The nation that gave railways to the world remaining at the cutting edge. And a great train when stationary has a noble physical presence: a fusion of architecture and technology — like the revolutionary train travelling around Russia in Dr Zhivago.
Yes, of course, dictators like trains too. Lenin had has own — now preserved in a special museum in Moscow. Mussolini had several — one surviving in working order in Florida until a tornado brought down a museum building on top of it. Hitler, on the other hand, preferred to travel about on his splendid new autobahns or in his own plane. — like the Junkers 52 that flies over Nuremberg at the beginning of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. Goring, however, despite being an ex-fighter pilot, had two. One, called Asien and consisting of 14 carriages, was a wartime creation and, in addition to sumptuous living quar- ters and a special radio car, had anti-air- craft guns mounted at either end. This is a feature which, I trust, the New Labour train could do without.
But what really ought to appeal to Mr Blair is that royalty always commissioned luxurious trains. A design of 1848 survives by the sculptor Alfred Stevens for a special carriage for King Frederick VII of Den- mark. I am not sure if it was ever built, but elaborate carriages for the ruler of the Papal states, Pope Pius IX, certainly were. The best was the vehicle made for him by Pio Latina Railway in 1858: an eight- wheeled carriage, baroque in style, with winged angels decorating the exterior and an open balcony for delivering blessings. It was certainly larger and more luxurious than any carriage yet made for Queen Vic- toria by a British railway company. Along with the rather simpler audience-car run- ning on the Pio Centrale Railway, it is illus- trated in Hamilton Ellis's book The Royal Trains.
As for Queen Victoria, who first trav- elled from Windsor Castle to London via the Great Western Railway at Slough in 1842, she had the use of several special car- riages to take her to every part of her Unit- ed Kingdom. Some of these can be seen at the Railway Museum in York — along with the charming early carriage made for her aunt, Queen Adelaide, in 1842 to travel on the London & Birmingham Railway. Also on display are the carriages with rather less ornamental and rich interiors made for George VI and Queen Elizabeth by the `I'll have that one on the right!' LMS in 1941. They were, of course, a clear manifestation of wartime austerity, but also demonstrate how good, efficient interior design is enhanced by the discipline imposed by the form and dimensions of the railway carriage.
And that should be the inspiration for Mr Blair's special train. It should be a model of the best British designers have to offer. How much better to get them fitting out a sleek, fast new train than furnishing a flat in Canary Wharf to impress foreign heads of state. And, after all, this train could be used to emphasise Britain's com- mitment to Europe. Thanks to the Channel Tunnel, the Prime Minister and other min- isters together with all the necessary staff could travel to a European summit by rail — and stay on board rather than use a hotel. And Cabinet meetings could be held in a siding in, say, Poggibonsi while Mr Blair is on holiday in Tuscany .
But I am not hopeful. In these superficial times, the Labour Party's image-makers are sure to think that rail travel is too staid. A pity though: to commission a magnificent modern new train — for the millennium is something this government could do which would be genuinely progressive (and show that it still believed in something).
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