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A curious conspiracy
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Published: December 2, 2009
Next to sex, conspiracy may be the most compelling ingredient a writer can stir-in to rivet readers to the page. "Enquiring minds want to know," says the tabloid which, like the cockroach, seems destined to survive long after more advanced journalism forms have bitten the dust. Perhaps mud is more nutritious than dust.
In the runaway best seller, "The Davinci Code," Dan Brown exploits the genre superbly. And even after almost half a century, whose ears fail to prick up at the words "grassy knoll" when discussing JFK?
But where is it written that conspiracies—even international ones—have to be sinister, benefiting the few at the expense of the many? Or even need to be kept secret?
With first-hand certainty, I can tell you about one international conspiracy that is absolutely real, although it is known only to a very small—if growing—fraction of the population. If you've followed this column over the years, you've read about it.
The object of this conspiracy is a revolt, one to free diesel railroads everywhere from reliance on oil-producing countries by fomenting a revolution in railway traction technology. We aim to overthrow petroleum and establish hydrogen power in its place: Code name: "hydrail."
Webster says to "conspire" means to "breathe together." Since hydrail is about reducing pollution in the air we all breathe together, then in a literal sense, you too are a "conspirator."
In a classic case of mission-creep, an additional hydrail objective has emerged over the years: to prevent further US deployment of overhead wire streetcars by substituting less obtrusive and far less costly hydrogen hybrid technology. Code name: "hydrolley."
As international conspiracies go, we've been pretty successful. So far there have been five International Hydrail Conferences, including one in Denmark and one in Spain. Go the Internet and type in a secret code (http://www.hydrail.org) and you'll see that the US Embassy in Copenhagen and a member of the Danish Parliament were involved in the second Hydrail Conference back in 2006.
So was the Russian Federation, which sent nine railroad experts to the Denmark. This June, working with Russian Rail, I told hydrail conferees gathered in Charlotte at UNC's Charlotte Research Institute about a new Russian system. It uses a massive hydrogen-fuelled power generator to enable safe winter track-laying in tunnels without the need to chose between exposing track workers to diesel generator exhaust or freezing them in a Siberian blast from powerful ventilating fans.
In 2007, the International Union of Railways (an industry group, not a labor organization) held three highly un-secret meetings in Paris, Bergamo Italy, and Brussels to discuss the potential of hydrail technology.
I spoke at two of them as a key hydrail conspirator. The depth of my un-secret involvement can be uncovered via the Internet and Google—see: "stan thompson" AND hydrail.
No good conspiracy story is complete unless governments play a role and hydrail is no exception.
Mooresville Mayor Bill Thunberg has been deeply involved since the beginning. The North Carolina State Energy Office and the N.C. Department of Commerce helped fund Mooresville's First International Hydrail Conference back in 2005. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was a sponsor in 2005, 2007 and 2009. The Centralina Council of Governments was a funding sponsor in all three of those years.
The U.S. Department of Transportation sent a keynote speaker to the International Hydrail Conference in Valencia, Spain, in 2008, and again to UNC-Charlotte this past summer.
The international plot gets deeper.
In 2007 the head of the locomotive design faculty for India's National Government railway system gave one of two keynote speeches at the Catawba College-hosted Hydrail Conference in Salisbury. Today he is pursuing the world's first Ph.D. in hydrail at the University of Pisa in Italy as a direct result of the connections he made in North Carolina.
A scientist from KRRI, the South Korea Railway Research Institute, was another keynoter at Catawba College in 2007. KRRI presented again at the 2008 Hydrail Conference in Valencia and in 2009 at Charlotte.
In November, 2007, the Premier of Ontario, Canada—Dalton McGuinty—announced that Ontario and Bombardier Transport are in talks about the manufacture and the export of hydrail trains of exactly the kind Mooresville proposed for the Mount Mourne to Charlotte commuter line; the Ontario Globe and Mail newspaper called me for a comment. Now, that just can't be coincidence: conspiracy!
In Charlotte, the hydrail conspiracy eludes detection by the daily paper in spite of public radio and extensive television coverage by public and commercial stations. But watch the news from Charlotte: If the new Charlotte Streetcar design does not include power supplied from an overhead wire, that will be proof positive that there is a hydrogen rail conspiracy—and that it is proceeding exactly as as planned.
(Mooresville's Stan Thompson is a retired strategic planner and environmental futurist for BellSouth Telecommunications. His column appears every other week in the Tribune. Email him at: HST2nd@aol.com)
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