America has Area 51 – a mysterious government facility with is publicly part of a large facility used to test and develop aircraft and weapons. Britain has the Strategic Steam Reserve…
The Strategic Steam Reserve is a British urban legend, although not a particularly common one these days. According to the legend, in the late 1960s, when British Railways were scrapping their steam locomotives and moving to diesel, in the region of a thousand steam locomotives were taken to a bunker (supposedly under Box Hill in the South-East of England or alongside the nuclear hold-out at Burlington in Wiltshire). In the event of nuclear war, coal and other burnable fuels were supposedly considered easier to obtain then electricity supply or diesel fuel. Conveniently, this ignores the fact that the Standard Class 5, 7 and 9F locomotives which are said to form the back-bone of the reserve consume in the region of 8 tons of good quality coal and 10,000 gallons of water for a 400 mile journey.
The ridiculousness of this set-up doesn’t mean it isn’t a great potential setting for a modern day campaign in Britain, however. Gigantic, lost and forgotten caves full of steam locomotives would make a great atmospheric setting for Call of Cthulhu, d20 Modern, White Wolf games, just about any kind of post apocalyptic setting or even something further in the future and more tongue in cheek, such as Paranoia or Judge Dredd.
I’ve been wanting to use the Strategic Steam Reserve as a backdrop for a while, so I’ve lifted the idea as the setting for an initial Truth and Justice adventure, in an episodic campaign. It’s somewhat embellished in my vision, with the reserve playing host not only to steam trains, but World War II tanks, Spitfires and various British weapons from the early years of the Cold War.
I’ve envisioned a gigantic facility: Corridors big enough to fit the trains and tanks down, connecting four massive man-made caverns together and running off this networks of offices, store rooms, dormitories and the facilities needed to keep an army alive through a nuclear strike. Admittedly, I’m not planning to use much of this initially – just two of the four chambers, with the other two mysteriously inaccessible. One of the accessible chambers will be largely untouched, while the other will be providing resources for the villain of the piece.
More details will be forthcoming once I’ve run the session in question, but hopefully we’ll see development of reserve as the hero’s fortress.
