It seems likely that in 1808 James attended the demonstration running of Richard Trevithick’s steam locomotive "Catch me who can" in London; certainly at this time he began to consider the long-term development of this means of transport, although he recognised that something more durable than cast iron would be needed for the rails themselves. For example, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars of 1815, he wrote to the Prince Regent proposing a railway link between the two principal naval dockyards at Chatham and Portsmouth which in peacetime could be used for passenger traffic; and in 1820/21 he promoted a Central Junction Railway from Stratford-upon-Avon to Paddington in London. In 1821 he made several trips to inspect railway developments in the Northumberland coalfield and met George Stephenson of Killingworth Colliery, his son Robert and the ironfounder William Losh. This resulted in an agreement for James to market the Stephenson/Losh patent locomotive (which James branded as the "Land-Agent" type) in England south of the Humber-Mersey line, with a supplementary agreement for Stephenson and Losh to use the patent for multitubular locomotive boilers taken out by William Henry James, William James’s son.