Andrew Martin
The Last Train to Scarborough
The sixth book in the Jim Stringer series, 2009
For all the people in the Quiet Carriage
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank, in no particular order: Roy Lambeth of the Durham Mining Museum; the World Ship Society and especially Mr Roy Fenton; Drene Brennan of the Postcard Club of Great Britain; Dr E. M. Bridges of the Museum of Gas and Local History at Fakenham, Norfolk; Tony Harden of the Railway Postcard Collectors' Circle; Andrew Choong, Curator of Historic Photographs and Ships Plans at the National Maritime Museum; Mr N. E. C. Molyneux of the National Rifle Association; Adrian Scales of the Scarborough Railway Society; Sue Pravezer, QC; Clive Groome of Footplate Days and Ways; Rod Lytton, Chief Mechanical Engineer at the National Railway Museum and' Karen Baker, librarian at the Museum.
All departures from historical fact are my responsibility.
PART ONE
Chapter One
As I awoke the thought came to me:' Where has Scarborough got to?' and it caused me a good deal of pain. I knew I was near coal – too near. I was on it. Or was it a great black beach, for I heard waves too? There was darkness above as well as below, but not quite complete darkness above, for I could make out thin strips of light. Each thought caused me a blinding pain behind the eyes and I did not want any more to come.
I inched a little way to the left, and the coal smell was stronger. It disagreed with me powerfully, and I saw in my mind things to do with coal and burning as the nausea came on: a locomotive moving coal wagons in an empty station that ought to have been packed with holiday-makers; a man making coal-gas tar at the works on the Marine Parade at Scarborough, and evidently doing it for his own amusement, for he was the only man in the town. A storm approached across the black sea behind him.