Dreams really do come true
Derek loved trains as a child. In fact, he had loved trains all of his life. As far back as he could remember he enjoyed watching trains, building toy trains, and playing with a train set when he was all of two years old, even though he didn’t understand what it was. He just enjoyed watching them go around and around on the tracks in his room.
When Derek was an infant, his father went out the day after he was born and bought a train set which he eagerly put together in Derek’s room. Many, quite rightly, felt that he had bought the train set for himself, so he could relive his childhood vicariously through his son. That probably was correct, but the end result was that Derek too loved trains.
After university, Derek, started his own business and built it into the huge entity it is today. When it was time to buy a building, because paying rent didn’t make sense anymore, he looked high and low for a building that was near a railway line. But he found none that were suitable. Real estate agents came to him with all sorts of promising locations and buildings but, none were suitable. Most were in industrial parks and dirty, noisy industrial parks at that. And so, Derek was in a quandary. It was obvious that after many months of fruitless travel there wasn’t going to be anything he would like. So, the alternative was to build one.
But here again, the only land available was in industrial parks. He had gone to several township meetings, but they had never panned out. “No!” seemed to be the standard answer of those toy bureaucrats, who took great delight negating positive feelings a successful businessman may have had. However, they had not dealt with a committed person like Derek. He sued them because he found out that they were giving permission to builders to build their gigantic eyes sores all over the countryside, but never gave Derek the time of day. He found an eager farmer who wanted to retire to Costa Rica and wanted to sell his property, which was adjacent to the main train line to the grand metropolis. Derek commissioned a study which showed him that it was ideal. A train passed on those lines every half an hour. It was either a local train serving the grand Metropolis and its adjacent environs or a goods train, or a train that left the East Coast and travelled across the country. Even the people who operated the train lines were in his corner, but there was one person on the planning committee who held everything up. Derek had better things to do with his time than spend it with a man who had an IQ that would show up on a chart one day. No, the man didn’t want a bribe, not that Derek had tried to bribe him, but his little thing was that he wanted to be a tin pot dictator and being the head of the planning commission gave him that power.
And so, Derek kept looking but he ran into the same problems each and every time. But as they say, keep plugging away and things are bound to happen.
One day, as Derek was near giving up and settling for just the sound of a train passing in the middle of the night if he were to leave his windows open, his assistant came to him while he was having his morning coffee and gazing through the hundreds of useless emails. He told Derek there was a man who would like to talk to him about his project. It was those last two words, ‘his project,’ which made Derek sit up straight.
“Send him in,” he said, and in walked a man in maybe his late seventies, wearing a not so nice business suit, but wearing a delightful smile on his face. Derek knew immediately the man had an idea he would like. Derek rose from his chair and shook his hand. He sat down across from him at his desk.
He declined any coffee and then leaned forward still wearing his wonderful smile and said, “I believe you have a problem I can help you with.”
Derek leaned forward and asked the man, whose name he couldn’t pronounce, to continue. And he did, with a series of quick-fire questions. “Derek, you would like to build an office building?”
“I do,” Derek replied.
“And it has to be in a very specific location, correct?”
“Correct,” he replied again.
“And you like trains?”
“I love trains!” Derek corrected him, and he nodded.
He rephrased his question, “you love trains?”
“Correct,” replied Derek.
“But you don’t want to build it in the grand metropolis, correct?”
“Correct.”
“A field would be better near a train line, correct?”
“Correct.”
Then the man leaned back in his chair and his smile got even wider, if that was at all possible. Derek leaned back in his chair as well and smiled because he was convinced that he was going to hear the solution to his problem.
“Well Derek,” said the man calmly, “why don’t you build a train line yourself?” Derek was now all ears. He hadn’t thought about that and he leaned forward again.
“Go on, I’m listening,” he said.
“Well Derek,” he continued, “let me tell you a little about myself first. For the last 50 years I have been a train conductor on long haul passenger trains across the continental US. Recently I had to give up my job because I’m not able to climb up and down stairs as well as I once could, but trains are my life. I have been looking for something to take its place, but nothing has come up, that was until I read about your trials and tribulations in the local rag. So, this is my solution. I come from a long line of farmers, but farming never appealed to me. My father just passed on at the grand old age of 103 and left me his farm. I’m the only survivor in my family. The only child and here I now have a farm of 110 acres. I was going to sell it to a developer who approached me, but that was until I saw the piece about you. So, this is what I suggest. I will sell you the land for not a lot of money and then on it you build your office building, but I have one condition.”
“Name it,” replied Derek jumping in unable to control his excitement.
“The building must look like an old train station from the days of steam trains in England where my family is originally from.”
“What a great idea,” said Derek, “Would you like me to name the train station?”
The man’s eyes glistened, “yes please, Kidlington,” he replied softly.
“And Kidlington it shall be,” replied Derek touched by the man’s emotions.
The man nodded his head in agreement. “Then you can build a train track just as your dad did for you when you were a child and you can have your own train on it.” This was too much for Derek who couldn’t hide his absolute good luck and then he sat back for a second.
“How did you know what my father had done for me when I was a child?”
“I think I read it in the paper,” he replied quickly trying not to get Derek hooked on that.
“Oh ok, I must’ve told the reporter that,” replied Derek not quite sure that was true. The man was about to say more when Derek got on the phone and told his assistant to cancel any meetings he had for the day and to also call his attorney and ask him to come over. “I think we should move on this as soon as possible don’t you?”
“I agree,” said the man, “but for me, I want to be the conductor on that train Derek. That’s all I want for the rest of my life.”
“And it’s yours,” Derek told him as he stood up and shook his hand.
“My,” said Derek, “you don’t know what you have done for me.”
The man repeated the same thing to Derek, “and you Derek. You don’t know what you have done for me.”
“This calls for a celebration,” said Derek walking from behind his desk towards a liquor cabinet. “Coke for me please,” said the man, “I don’t drink, never have.”
“My father never drank either,” replied Derek, his last word trailing off.
A Coke made its appearance, Derek called his twenty employees into his office where they all celebrated their boss’ good fortune.
A year and a half later, there was a celebration when the office building was opened. The name Kidlington adorned the building. It was a great day with people from all over attending. As the mayor cut the ribbon to the office building, the steam train blew its whistle making both Derek and the man whose name he still wasn’t able to pronounce, eyes begin to glisten. He then climbed on board with a little help from Derek and blew his whistle, waved his flag and the steam train filled with excited children began to move out of the station with Derek and the conductor in the last carriage. They hugged each other. It was a dream come true for both men.