Manifest Destiny

The more observant of you (and goodness knows, that’s not saying much) have no doubt been following the progress of the British Steam Car Challenge.

It’s no secret that when the Americans snatched the World Steam-powered Land Speed record in 1906 (with the astonishing speed of 127mph, which was then the absolute land speed record), the British response was to “play the long game”. We were quietly confident that we would regain the record. I don’t think we anticipated taking 103 years to do so but revenge is a meal best eaten cold and by cracky, we have done it. On Tuesday August 25th, a British steam powered car driven by Charles Burnett III successfully broke the land speed record for a steam powered car with an average speed of 139.843mph on two runs over a measured mile at Edward’s Air Force Base, California.

Those of you capable of rudimentary feats of memory may recall that only a year ago, the Peppercorn Class A1 Pacific Steam Locomotive Tornado was launched by a British volunteer trust – a 62ft, 170-ton engine costing £3million, which was the first built in the UK for over 50 years. The steam renaissance is beginning and at last, Britain takes her rightful place as the world’s pre-eminent exponent of steam powered engineering.

As the temporary fads for the internal combustion engine and all things digital reaches its inevitable conclusion, and people return to the certainties of a better age, Blighty will be poised, ready to capitalise on this technological lead and reassume its role as workshop of the world.

Our steam powered cars will thunder through vast, soot-blackened industrial cities. Burly steam locomotives will haul trains across the rural areas of the world, setting ablaze the tinder-dry grass. The oily grey seas will be churned by steam-powered leviathans. Coughing children will wave gaily from steam-powered fairground rides. Their pinched faces will be wracked respiratory disease and the impacts of a score of industrial pollutants, but they will be happy. They will know that the future is steam powered. They will know that they live in a world guarded by the dreadnoughts and dirigibles of the Empire, a world of Tesla coils and clockwork, of difference engines and electro-mechanical switchgear. A world of geared, machined certainty where humanity will labour like bees for the common good. And above it all, like great towers raised to the glory of man, chimneys will belch smoke and steam into the grey skies.

It’s a beautiful prospect. The only shame is that, as an asthmatic, I am unlikely to live long enough to enjoy it.